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S^ PAUL IN ROME. 



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BEING 

SERMOXS PREACHED IN ROME IN THE SPRIXG OF 1871; 



ISiih ait ?nfrobttcfie».: : 



BY 

R. MACDUFF, D. D. 

A utJurr of "Memories o/Gennesaret, 
"Memories of Bethany," &c. 




4fxmrlh (Tbonsnuir. 



" I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also."— Roil. i. 15. 

" And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that 
came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which 
concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.'* — 
ACTS xxviii. 30, 31. 



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"We are moved by the very places where 
the footprints cf men we admire or love are 
pi esent. That very Athens of ours does not 
delight me so much by the magnificent works 
and exquisite arts cf the ancients, as b}^ the 
rcmembrar.ee of the chiefest men ; where 
cne was wont to dwell, where to sit, where 
to argue. I studiously contemplate their 
tcmbs." — Atticus* Letter to Cicero. 



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"J honour Rome for this reason: for 
though 1 could celebrate her praises on 
many other accounts ; fcr her greatness, for 
her beauty, for her power, for her wealth, 
and for her warlike exploits, yet, passing 
over all these things, I glorify her on this 
account, that St Paul in his lifetime wrote 
to the Romans, and loved them, and was 
present with and conversed with them, and 
ended his life among them. Wherefore the 
city is on this account renowned more than 
all others ; on this account I admire her, not 
on account of her gold, her columns, or her 
other splendid decorations." — Ckrysostoiri s 
Homily on the Ej>istle to the Romans. 



W 



To 
J . Warrington Wood, Esq., 

Sculptor, Rome, 

One of the Worshippers at the Porta del Popolo; 

and who, 

in the Gi-eat Art of which he is Master, 

has consecrated his genins to the noblest ends; 

STfjts; IToIunu, 

with true friendship and regard \ 

is 

inscribed. 



PREFACE 



r I A HE Introduction which follows, is in- 
tended to stand for a Preface. 

A word of apology may, however, be 
further premised, for the somewhat per- 
sonal and colloquial style of that prelimi- 
nary dissertation ; also, for the apparent, 
indeed the acknowledged incongruity of 
its matter with what succeeds. 

It may be sufficient to say, that there 
were not a few subjects of a topographical 
and traditional character bearing on my 
theme, and gleaned by personal observa- 
tion and inquiry on the spot, which I con- 
sidered might be of interest to the reader, 



X PREFACE. 

as they unquestionably were to the writer. 
Moreover, that it were better to cast these 
alike in a familiar shape and separate 
opening chapter, rather than relegate 
them to footnotes, which are seldom read, 
or incorporate them with the pages of the 
Sermons, — thus leaving the latter to be 
given as they were delivered. 

All the recent discoveries of Roman 
Archaeology, as well as older ecclesiastical 
legends bearing on the Apostolic age, have 
a secondary, indeed, but not less real value 
for the Bible student and the Christian 
Church. Besides, they ought at least to 
deepen and augment the interest of any 
such themes and life-lessons as those which 
it has been attempted, most imperfectly, to 
illustrate in the second part of the volume, 
with reference to the closing years of the 
world's greatest benefactor. 



PREFACE. XI 



The Discourses themselves were preach- 
ed on eight successive Sabbaths, in fulfil- 
ment of a duty devolved upon the Author 
by the Church at home. Some of them 
will be found less directly, others more 
directly, bearing on St Paul's residence in 
the Imperial City. 



September 1S71. 




Picture 0/ St Paul on an ancient glass a<p in the Vatican Museum. 
See Introductory Chaffer, p. 98. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introductory Chapter, . . . .15 

SERMON I 

Rom. i. 15, 16. 

St Paul's Announcement of his Purpose in going 

to Rome, 102 

SERMON II. 
Rom. i. 15-17; Phil. iii. 7-9, 

St Paul's Letter to the Romans : Its Great 

Theme, . . . . . . .126 

SERMON III 

Rom. i. 7; 2 Tim. i. 2-5. 

St Paul's Fellowships in Rome: Timothy, . 154 

SERMON IV. 
2 Tim. iii. 15, 16; Acts xxviii. 23. 

The Bible in Rome. — St PauPs Testimony to the 
Authority of Holy Scripture. — The Word of 
God not bound, . . . . .188 



XIV CONTENTS. 



SERMON V. 
Philem. 9, 10. page 

St PauPs Converts in Rome : among the Soldiers : 
among the poor and degraded. — Onesimus ; 
and the Epistle written from Rome to Phile- 
mon^ ....... 220 

SERMON VI 
Phil. iv. 22. 

St Paul's special Salutations from the Saints in 

Cesar's Household, . . . . .250 

SERMON VI L 

2 Tim. i. 16-18; iv. 19. 

St Paul's Prayer in RoME/?r Onesiphorus, . 282 

SERMON VIII 
2 Tim. i. 12 ; iv. 6-8. 

St Paul's Dying l^estimony in ROME. — His 

Martyrdom. — Conclusion, . . . .314 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



T N visiting for the first time the Eternal City, 
nothing, amid its thousand thronging re- 
collections, was of such profound interest as the 
" Roman Memories of St Paul." 

Circumstances interfered with the cherished 
purpose of making a preliminary acquaintance 
with the sites of "Appii Forum'' and "The Three 
Taverns;" but we were able, under favourable 
auspices, including among these the brightest 
of skies, to trace the course of the Apostle- 
prisoner along the beautiful bay of Baiae, as 
the shores of Italy first opened upon him. If 
the commonly -accepted dates be correct, it 
must have been, too, about the same period of 
the year, when vine and fig-tree were in earliest 
bud; and the weeping willow, still so pleasingly 



1 6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

familiar at this season to the traveller, was 
hanging its full, graceful tresses by the wayside. 
I felt it a privilege to stand on the only remain- 
ing step, covered with bright seaweed, and fur- 
rowed with age, on which he set foot at Puteoli,* 
also to follow him in thought in his journey to 
the capital, through the Arco Felice and by 
the Lake Avernus, till the ancient road, which 
in all probability he pursued, and which joins 
the Appian Way at Sinuessa, disappeared from 
our sight amid the rubbish and brushwood near 
Cumae. 

The other termination of the great "Via 
The Via Appia " (whose polygonal blocks of 

Appia at 

Rome. basalt are in many places still grooved 
with the wheels w T hich, two thousand years ago, 
passed over them), formed one of our first 
resorts on reaching Rome itself. It is easily 



* A church, is close by, but erected not to St Paul but to the 
Virgin. St Januarius, whose name is associated with the pre- 
tended miracle of liquefied blood, is evidently the patron saint 
of modern ' Pozzuoli. ' 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. I? 

accessible from the supposed site of the old 
Porta Capena of the Servian wall, by the 
modern San Sebastiano and Arch of Drusus.* 
However doubtful may be the identity of 
other traditional spots, which superstition has 
associated with St Paul, one fully realised his 
presence here. It was the feeling akin to 
what had previously been experienced, in a 
visit to Palestine, with regard to a Greater ; 
when, amid the difficulties of tracing the Re- 
deemer's footsteps in connection with other 
localities, we felt there could be no hesitation 
that we were on the most consecrated ground 
on earth, as we trod the green sward of Olivet, 
or the beach of Gennesaret. 

We could, accordingly, vividly imagine the 
Apostle, accompanied with the band of Roman 



* This original entrance to the Appian Way will more than 
likely be soon brought to light, if indeed the discovery is not 
already made. The well-known President of one of the 
Archaeological Societies in Rome is now engaged in clearing 
the mounds of earth half way between the Baths of Caracalla 
and the Arch of Constantine, in search of the " missing link.' 5 

B 



> 



1 8 IN TROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 

" Brethren " (some who met him at Appii 
st PauVs Forum, and others, probably older and 

appi-oach to . . 

/^ a/y. less able for the journey, who had joined 
them at "The Three Taverns"), now approach- 
ing the end of their long route of fifty-one 
miles. We may be pardoned for pausing, as we 
endeavour to picture and vivify the scene which 
then opened before the central figure of that 
group. Of all the entrances to ancient, as to 
modern Rome, this was incomparably the grand- 
est. Well may the Appian have been boast- 
fully named by Statius, Regina Viarum (the 
Queenly Way). It formed the great line of 
communication, not only with southern Italy, 
but with the most remote oriental possessions 
of the Caesars, starting from the Golden Mile- 
stone in the Roman Forum and terminating at 
Brundusium. It was on nearing Rome it must 
have assumed its most imposing form and di- 
mensions. Where now, for miles along this 
regal approach, we have only the fragments of 
grim, weather-stained sepulchres, wreathed with 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 1 9 

acanthus and ivy, interspersed here and there 
with remains of mediaeval fortresses, lonely 
blocks of travertine, and other masses of un- 
shapely ruin, — there must have stretched before 
the Apostle's eye one long magnificent street, 
lined with monuments to illustrious dead; a 
vast colonnade of tombs, with no vault but the 
blue sky, forming, if we may venture on the 
comparison, the Westminster Abbey of the Im- 
perial City,* w r hile the present waste, treeless 
Campagna, which girdles the modern Rome as 
with a zone of death, was studded with patri- 
cian villas and palatial residences. The range 
of Alban and Sabine hills would appear on his 

* All the burying-grounds in ancient times were extra-mural ; 
situated generally in some conspicuous place immediately beyond 
the gates. I was struck with this peculiarity at Pompeii. The 
"Street* of Tombs," outside one of the principal entrances, 
forms not the least interesting and noteworthy feature in the 
exhumed city. I noticed similar rows of ruined sepulchres, re- 
cently excavated, at Bayli and Cumae. The same, as every 
reader knows, was the case in Palestine. We have the familiar 
instance of the funeral of the Widow's Son, met as it was pro- 
ceeding outside the gate of Nain. To this day, the Jerusalem 
Cemetery is the immemorial o^ie in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. 



20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

right Conspicuous above him would be Monte 
Cavi, whither the laurelled conquerors of Rome 
were wont to proceed in triumphal procession 
with their trophies from the Capitol, — the 
Temple of Jupiter Latialis, long supplanted by 
a modern Passionist Convent, crowning its sum- 
mit. Not far off, he would see Frescati, on its 
gentle eminence, enshrined in olive groves ; and 
still farther to the right, Tivoli, nestling in its 
purple shadows, with the mountains of the 
Abruzzi for a background. Farthest away of 
all would be snowy Soracte, the solitary guar- 
dian of the northern landscape. Other thoughts 
and themes may possibly have been burdening 
his spirit as he passed monuments which to this 
hour engross the interest of the Roman archae- 
ologist ; a few, even then, hoary with age, others 
fresh from the chisel of sculptor or architect. 
Among the latter, on his right, would be that to 
the memory of the Consul Quintus Veranius. 
More conspicuous, alike in dimensions and 
splendour, would be the still surviving circular 



IN TROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 2 I 

sepulchre, with its blocks of travertine — the 
Casale Rotondo, then recently erected by 
Augustus to the head of one of his great sena- 
torial families. These two ancient tombs to 
the left, with their broad basement of peperino, 
are erected over the spot where, in the infancy 
of the empire, the Horatii and Curiatii fell. 
While here and there, mingling with this city of 
the dead, glimpses would be caught, through 
occasional openings, of the temples of Romulus, 
Bacchus, and Mars ; or, on a greater scale than 
all, of those enormous aqueducts, then in their 
completed vastness, whose weird colossal frag- 
ments, still spanning the naked " Prairie" of 
which we have spoken, form the most pictur- 
esque of all the relics of Rome's ancient splen- 
dour. 

We may imagine the spot reached where the 
round tower of Cecilia Metella, built since St 
Paul's time, crowns a gentle descent. Here he 
would obtain his most impressive view of the 
city proper, as the Aventine and Palatine 



22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Mounts more nearly revealed themselves, with 
their crowded piles of architecture, — whether 
Theatres or Basilicas, Baths or Arches, Temples 
or Palaces ; and yet, discovering also streets of 
squalid misery, homes festering with poverty 
and crime, which, as much as in any city of the 
present day, were in strange juxtaposition with 
dwellings of luxurious and guilty extravagance. 
Nor can we fail, in passing, to note, that the 
The Bast- modern traveller can discern from this 

Ilea of Sa?i m 

Paolo and point, what was all unknown to the 

the Cata- 
combs, illustrious wayfarer, the Campanile of 

the great Basilica (of which more hereafter), 
which is the traditional custodier of his own 
martyred ashes, and nigh the reputed spot 
where he sealed his testimony with his blood. 
He must have trodden too, at this same place, 
over ground, or immediately adjoining it, which 
was yet to have its own hallowed history and 
associations. To this history, and these asso- 
ciations indeed, in one sense, this memorable 
entry into the Imperial City gave birth; for a 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 23 

few steps farther, on reaching the bottom of 
that gentle descent, he must have walked over 
one, if not more, of those vast subterranean 
vaults (dug probably originally to obtain stones 
and sand for the buildings of the city), whose 
tortuous caverns, in coming centuries, were to 
be utilised by the Christians as shelters for the 
persecuted living and graves for their martyred 
dead. As the great Apostle passed along that 
sepulchral road, could he fail to read on these 
monuments many inscriptions of aching hearts ? 
— inscriptions similar to those which may still 
be seen preserved in the Lapidarian Museum of 
the Vatican, gathered from heathen Columbaria, 
— the mute agony of unsolaced grief, left to tell 
its tale of hopelessness and despair on the dumb 
stone or marble. All the boasted mythology of 
Rome was helpless to answer the question, 
" Shall the dust praise Thee?" That silent 
necropolis — the dormitory of the Infant Church 
— would yet utter through the rudest of epitaphs 
its cheering response — a response furnished 



24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

and bequeathed by the Great Teacher who was 
now unconsciously passing over it — " Ye sorrow 
not as others who have no hope!' — "To die is 
gain." — " Them also that sleep in Jesus will 
God bring with Him !" 

We can even, with no great effort of imagi- 
The Scene nation, still further vivify the scene, by 

and its sur- 
roundings, the introduction of lesser accessories ; 

for the familiar surroundings of to-day are, many 
of them at least, identical with those which then 
greeted the eye of the Apostle. As he ad- 
vanced on the crowded highway, he would see, 
in dress and customs, much of (what we may 
call) the ordinary routine of Roman life, which 
can have undergone little alteration since then. 
Yonder Contadini — peasants from the Alban 
hills, with their " pointed hats, their cloaks of 
undressed shaggy hides, rough sandals on their 
feet, and yellow gourds for water slung across 
their shoulders," — would meet him, as they met 
us, going, as it might be, for Roman market or 
holiday: or that other group driving their 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 2$ 

patient team — the horns of the oxen twined 
with wild flowers or scarlet fillets — would be- 
stow a passing glance on the dust-covered tra- 
veller. There, Senator or Praetor in his toga, 
would be seen rattling along the pavement, 
with an attendant retinue of slaves, to his 
Sabine retreat : there, a wasted valetudinarian 
repairing for recruited strength to the sea 
breezes of Baiae or Cumae. There, is a tur- 
baned Asiatic enjoying his first pilgrimage to 
the mistress of kingdoms. There, are the still 
indispensable fountains enshrined in semi- 
circular seats, filled with loungers or wayfarers 
to and from the busy capital. Where that un- 
sandalled Capuchin is walking dreamily along, 
counting his beads, or mumbling his missal, 
there might be a priest of Jupiter seen hasten- 
ing to do sacrifice at Cavi or Egeria. Where 
these bronzed berseglieri, with quick movement, 
are hurrying on an embassy to Albano, he 
might encounter some Pretorian guards, or 
helmeted horsemen, returning to their barracks 



26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

in the Palatine or Campus Martius. There, 
may have been another young Giotto tending 
his goats on the wayside, and watching the 
golden sunset behind these gaunt solemn cy- 
presses, or cluster of stone pines. There, would 
be a swarm of irrepressible beggars, similar in 
look and gesture to those who still urge their 
importunate suits. Groups of children might be 
busied plucking the wild flowers, which then as 
now line the wayside, or culling the yellow- 
berried ivy from the walls. While the timid 
green lizard basking in the sunlight, would be 
seen hurrying away at the approaching foot- 
step, and burying itself from sight in the nearest 
tiny aperture or cluster of drooping ferns. 

Thus then St Paul is at the gates of Rome. 
„. . . And in saying; so, the loner dream of 

His arrival J & ' £> 

at the gates. ^ jj fe ^ ^ j^ fulfiUeA j t j s the 

realisation of what forms, at one time, the inci- 
dental topic of his conversation with friends, 
"I must also see Rome" (Acts xix. 21), at 
others, the reiterated topic of a letter, " Having 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 2*] 

a great desire these many years to come unto 
you" (Rom. xv. 23-33; ^ so Rom. i. 10-15). 
A desire, moreover, which must have been 
mightily augmented and stimulated by such a 
sanction and promise as this, " Be of good cheer, 
Paul ; for as thou hast testified of me in Jeru- 
salem, so must thou bear witness also in 
Rome" (Acts xxiii. 11). Dare we fathom the 
thoughts which must have been burning within 
the bosom of the moral Hero, as he listened to 
the hum of all this busy industry and frivolous 
pleasure ; and gazed, amid the triumphs of art 
and power, on visible evidences of Pagan igno- 
rance and heathen depravity on every side ? 
Would not his spirit, as on a kindred occasion, 
on entering the world's sister capital, be "stirred 
w r ithin him ?" Would not his inmost resolve, 
though not expressed in words, be this, — " I can 
do all things through Christ strengthening me;" 
c and among these all things, in God's great 
name, this impregnable citadel must be stormed 
and fall. Its ramparts, at whatever cost, must 



28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

be carried, and its magazines redeemed for the 
service of "the Prince of the kings of the 
earth." ' But enough. In silent emotion, the 
obscure, impotent, unknown Pilgrim from Asia 
Minor — the unnoted unit among the teeming 
throng — pursues his way, until, passing by the 
gate of the modern wall, onward by the narrow 
valley between the Coelian and Aventine, along 
the Via Triumpkalis, he gazes on the aggregate 
glories of the Palatine; and entering the Forum, 
the centre and focus of the great Babylon, with 
the Temple of Concord and Saturn in front, 
and that of Jupiter Tonans crowning the sum- 
mit of the Capitoline, the ambassador in bonds 
is merged with his little company in that sea of 
multitudinous life ! 

We have no authentic records to guide us 
_ . ^ in following; the cavalcade farther ; nor 

Design of & ' 



Intro due 

tor) 

ter. 



toryChap- is lt m y desi g n > in this introductory 



chapter, to attempt entering into the 
details of St Paul's residence at Rome. This 
would not only far exceed our prescribed limits, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 29 

but it would be, at best, only a feeble rehearsal 
of what has been so ably rendered by others. 
My purpose, rather, is to convey a few impres- 
sions, gathered recently on the spot, regarding 
localities associated with the great Apostle; and 
though some of these rest on no more than tra- 
dition, it may not be uninteresting to the reader, 
as it was to the writer, to know about them, 
and receive them for what they are worth, 
After the rejection of the spurious and legen- 
dary, there remains, at all events, an ample resi- 
duum of truth. 

It would have been of the deepest interest to 
the Christian student had there been „. D _ 

St PauPs 

the possibility of ascertaining, with any and^hirld 
degree of certainty, the situation of 
that memorable dwelling, or rather dwellings, 
of his; the " lodging" and "hired house." I 
made it my endeavour, while resident in the 
city, alike to explore the traditional sites of 
these, and to obtain regarding them the 
opinion of the most reliable antiquarian au- 



30 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

thorities whose acquaintance I was privileged 
to form. 

I may here remark, once for all, as having 
Tr _ ± _ reference to other Bible scenes and 

Value to be 

fjaditfol-- Realities in Rome, that while there are 
aryn.es. ^ q ^ e found, regarding not a few of 
these, the wildest and most extravagant myths — 
delusions fortified with hosts of lying miracles, 
which can only provoke a smile, and are sum- 
marily to be repudiated — it would be unfair to 
involve all such in one indiscriminate rejection. 
The historical sites of Jerusalem (some of these 
more sacred still), are in many cases hopeless for 
identification ; and for this obvious reason, that 
with every desire on the part of the Church of 
the early centuries to retain them in remem- 
brance, siege after siege swept over the de- 
voted city ; and amid sack and pillage, and fire, 
and centuries of expulsion, all vestige of such 
'holy places was irretrievably obliterated. 
Amid similar ravages, on the other hand, 
which, in successive centuries wasted the 



IN TROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 3 1 

Roman capital, there neither was any such 
material change in its natural features, nor any- 
such extermination of those who alone had 
a sacred interest in transmitting to posterity 
an acquaintance with the spots dear to the 
hearts and memories of the faithful. The 
Christian Church, planted by the great Apostle 
in the city of the Caesars, never ceased to 
exist ; and a knowledge of those haunts- 
such as his hired lodging — his dungeon — the 
place of his martyrdom and death — all undoubt- 
edly known to the early converts, could hardly 
fail to be confided, as a hallowed secret — a 
sacred legacy — from generation to generation. 
Nor, surely, have we any reason to impeach the 
accuracy and trustworthiness of the attesting 
witnesses. They would mark and cherish such 
localities, even when the power of the persecutor 
as yet forbade them, in any visible or tangible 
form, to perpetuate the memories which sur- 
rounded them ; and when, on the establishment 
of Christianity throughout the empire, they 



32 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

could with impunity claim these as their own, 
can we doubt how jealously they would con- 
tinue to guard them ? Great seems the differ- 
ence between their accurate conservation ot 
sacred places, and the later extravagances of 
relics and miracles, which, as unnatural ex- 
crescences have grown out of and deformed 
them. 

It was cherishing these feelings that I re- 
, „ ,. paired, in the first instance, to the 

" House of x 

st Paul" church of " Santa Maria, Via Lata," in 

Church of ' y 

S Maria in the Corso (adjoining the Doria Palace) 
■ — the reputed " House of St Paul." 
While the other prisoners who had accompanied 
him from Puteoli were taken, as was usual, to 
the Pretorian camp ;— by a special act of con- 
siderate clemency (for which he was doubtless 
indebted to the influence and indulgence of 
Julius with the Prefect Burrhus), he was con- 
ducted, it is alleged, under guard to this 
temporary home. Here he would have that 
memorable interview with his countrymen so 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 33 

minutely described in the closing chapter of the 
Acts. Many thousands of these were resident 
in the Transtevere — the quarter in that age 
which corresponded with the modern Ghetto. 
The Church of Santa Maria was founded by 
Sergius in the eighth century, and rebuilt by 
Innocent VIII. in 1485. 

A youth lit a small lamp and conducted us 
to a subterranean chamber, where he pointed to 
some unreliable frescoes alleged to be painted 
by St Luke. The position of the large stones 
under the archway adjoining the Via Lata, and 
which are of unmistakable antiquity, betoken 
that the street was at one time considerably 
below its present level. To the left hand, in 
entering the vault, is a pillar surmounted by 
a vase, said to contain martyrs' blood. The 
pillar was brought from the Catacombs of 
St Sebastian : an iron chain or fetter is 
suspended loose from the centre; above and 
below which, the appropriate words are in- 
scribed in Latin, " Sed Verbum Dei non est 



34 INTRODUCTORY Ch AFTER. 

ALLIGATUM"* (" But the Word of God is not 
bound"). 

The main objection raised by some to the 
accuracy of this traditional spot is, that it 
occupies the site of the Septa Julia— an edifice 
built for the assemblies and votation of the 
Comitia, by Julius Cesar, B.C. 26. But there 
seems no great extravagance or unlikelihood 
in the assumption, that one of these smaller 
chambers, into which antiquarians tell us this 
"Government building" was divided, might 
have been appropriated for a few days to the 
reception of a political prisoner under custody 
of a state officer. This objection, moreover, 

„ „ would have been more feasible had the 

St Paul s 

11 lured vault in the Via Lata been identified 

house, 

f'pfoif with St Paul's "own hired house," 
" in which he resided "two whole 
years." For such a length of time, and with 
the unrestrained freedom we are expressly in- 
formed he enjoyed while there, in proclaiming 

* See illustration on the binding of this Volume. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 35 

the truths of the Gospel, his residence could 
hardly fail to prove an inconvenience and inter- 
ference in a public state building. But if we 
still farther follow out the ecclesiastical legend, 
the difficulty is removed. By a careful perusal 
of the narrative in the Acts, there is a strong 
probability that two separate dwelling-places 
are there referred to. In other w T ords, that he 
was transferred from the place of his first and 
temporary domicile in the city, to some other 
permanent lodgment spoken of by the phrase, 
" his own hired house. 55 * 

Such a dwelling is pointed out within the 
Church which commemorates this place and 
period of his Roman life, " S. Paolo o Paolino 
alio Regola." Thither I w r ent, at the suggestion 
of one specially conversant in questions relating 
to Christian Archaeology. I discovered the 

* There are two separate words employed, &evia and [xiad^fia 
(Acts xxviii. 23, 30). %ei>ia is only on one other occasion 
found in the New Testament and in Paul's writings — viz., 
when he says in his Epistle to Philemon, " prepare me also 
a lodging." 



36 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 

place with some difficulty; for the Church itself 
is comparatively little known, not having much 
of interest or impressiveness about its architec- 
ture, and being in rather an inaccessible situation, 
adjoining the Ghetto, not far from Ponte Sisto, 
and the ruins of the Theatre of Balbus.* Enter- 
ing the Church, at the right of the Altar is a 
doorway, surmounted by the following inscrip- 
tion in black lettering : — " Divi PAULI APOSTOLI 
HOSPITIUM ET Schola." A few steps conduct 
down to an oblong apartment, said, from the 
above inscription, to be " The house and school 
of St Paul." Its windows at present look out to 
an extremely narrow street. Its walls are sur- 
rounded with marble slabs, on which are written, 
in Latin, appropriate verses from the Acts and 
Romans. For example, in descending, on the 
right hand, the eye is attracted with the 
words — 

* It must frankly be owned, that subjects of classical and 
Pagan, rather than of Christian antiquity, are those which 
mainly engross the study of archaeologists in Rome. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 37 

" SEQUEXTE AUTEM NOCTE, 

ASSISTEXS EI DOMINUS 

AIT, 

constans esto, 

slcut enim testificatus es de me 

in Jerusalem, 

Sic te oportet et 

ROM.E. 

Acts xxiii. ii." 

In the upper end of the chamber is a toler- 
ably-executed picture of St Paul, with the 
simple inscription — 

" Paulus Servus Jesu Christi. 

On either side are similar appropriate Latin 
inscriptions — one from Acts xxv. 12, the other 
from Acts xxv. 10, 11. In an old and curious 
volume shown me by an eminent resident 
archaeologist, there is the following reference to 
this Church of Alio Regola, explaining how it 
came to be called the School of St Paul : — 
"Those he converted to Christ, here came to 
be catechised, because it was a retired site/' * 

* " Tesori Nascosti delV Alma Citta di Roma," "Treasures 



38 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

There always must necessarily be much un- 
interest certainty hanging over one or both of 

connected 

with the these " memorial buildings." But even 

Home of 

st Paul. allowing a wide margin for doubt, one 
could not help, in visiting their dim vaults, en- 
deavouring to realise, at least the possibility, 
that the greatest of mere men — he whom 
Chrysostom, in one of his i golden' epithets, 
truly calls " the Heart of the World" — once 
gazed on these walls ; that here he gathered 
around him the nucleus of the Christian Church 
in the world's great capital ; that here, according 
to the narrative in the Acts, he threw open his 
doors to all inquirers ; rejected by the Jew, he 
turned w r ith confident hope to the Gentile, and 
day after day, with unabating and unflagging 



Concealed of the Beautiful City of Rome, mdcxxv." And yet, 
as an illustration of the gross delusions which are found side by 
side with more sober and reliable statements, it is added after 
the sentence just quoted, " In the year 1096, in a stone in this 
Church, was placed a list of relics of saints. Among these 
relics were the arm of St Paul ; and the shoes of Christ, which 
the Great Baptist said he was unworthy to stoop down and 
unloose." 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 39 

zeal, "from morning to evening," expounded 
to them "the unsearchable riches of His oral 

instruc- 

Christ," — " teaching " as well as fans. 
"preaching" (for both are specially conjoined, 
Acts xxviii. 31) the good news of the kingdom. 
Nay farther, according to the very strong and 
emphatic, we may even say, cheering and en- 
couraging language which closes the record of 
the Acts, doing so without let or hindrance, 
"with all confidence, no man forbidding him ;"* 
that here Aristarchus and Epaphras, his fellow- 
prisoners, may have gladdened him with their 
presence ; that here Epaphroditus may have 
come to him with gifts from the Philippians ; 
that here Luke may have written, under his 
supervision, the "Acts of the Apostles;" that 
here Onesiphorus may have come oft to refresh 
him ; and Onesimus to be equipped for his 
City Mission work ; and Timothy to receive 



* Mera Traces Trappy a Las, aKoXtirus, implying a remarkable 
exception, something not to have been expected. — See Aljorus 
Greek Testa??ie?it. 



40 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

parental counsel, and yield in return, filial love ; 
that here one of the soldiers, to whom by turns 
he was chained night and day, may have gone 
back to his barracks when his hour of duty 
expired, carrying the tale of this wondrous, self- 
sacrificing, noble-hearted criminal, from whose 
magnanimous soul love to God and man seemed 
ever to be gushing forth like a perennial stream, 
— recounting the words he there heard uttered, 
and the hymns he there heard sung, — words 
and hymns telling of ONE who seemed to 
combine the might and majesty of their own 
Olympian Jove with the tenderness of more 
than a human Friend;* that here, as in the 
case of his Great Master, "the common people" 
may have " heard him gladly." Numbers from 
the streets and lanes around, attracted by 
various motives, may have come to listen to 
the doctrines of the strange Jewish preacher, 
" and that which seemed at first," as it has 



* See note on Graphite, in Collegio Romano, at the beginning 
of Sermon V. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 4 1 

been beautifully said, " to impede, must really 
have deepened the impression of his eloquence ; 
for who could see, without emotio^ that vener- 
able form subjected by iron links to the control 
of the soldier who stood beside him ? how often 
must the tears of the assembly have been called 
forth by the upraising of that fettered hand, and 
the clanking of the chain which checked its 
energetic action !"* Nor have we exhausted all 
the associations of that Roman dwell- «-••,, 

Jriiswritten 

ing, when we remember, that in more P tst es - 
ways than by his living voice, the world stands 
related to him as an everlasting debtor. There, 
he may possibly have dictated to his scribe, the 
greater number — we had almost said the most 
valuable — of his Epistles ; those repertories of 
holy thought, which have proved as mini- 
stering angels to countless anxious, aching, 
sorrowing hearts. That dimly-lighted chamber 
may have been the little u Oracle" whence 
issued " responses" and behests for mankind — 

* Howson and Conybeare's "St Paul," vol. ii. p. 3S7. 



42 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

the " holy Church throughout all the world " his 
audience — all time the period of his influence, 
— thus making him the instructor of future 
centuries and unborn peoples. As the burning 
arrows went forth from his quiver, the modern 
pillar with its fetter and inscription seems faith- 
fully to describe the joy of his free spirit, ts An 
ambassador in bonds ; hit the Word of God is 
not bound!'* What spot on earth, could we only 
know it with certainty, could be compared in 
interest with that ? The eagles on those im- 
perial standards with which then he may have 
become familiar, were winging their magnificent 
flight to the ends of the earth ; but that chained 
Eagle, by one of the bridges of the Tiber, was 
pluming his pinions for more majestic soarings. 
From that " hired house " was to go forth a 
power mightier than the behests of Caesar, 
more irresistible than the shock of legions and 
cohorts. As it has been said, " The vast Roman 
empire, the most powerful on the face of the 
earth, which required seven ages to establish, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 43 



this man takes only a quarter of an age to 
regenerate."* 



We naturally pass from the reputed dwelling 
of the Apostle, to speak of those in __. 

r ' r His com- 

the Roman capital with whom he was ^andcln- 
brought into contact ; his friends, com- 
panions, and converts. To make reference to 
all of these, even in the most cursory shape, 
would form far too wide a theme for a prefatory 
chapter. Some are selected for more special 
consideration in the sequel of this volume. It 
may be interesting, however, to note in passing, 
that among other remarkable discoveries in 
Christian Archaeology, is that of slabs and sar- 
cophagi — these too of the first century — found 
in the old places of sepulture, bearing a few of 
the very names of those to whom Paul sent his 
salutations in the 16th chapter of Romans. 



* Monod. From the "hired house" must have been written 
the Epistles to Philemon, to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, 
and to the Philippians. 



44 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Many travellers can enter into the feelings so 
well expressed by Dr Howson, when he says, 
"He can never forget the start of pleasure with 
which he saw the name of Tryphsena in one 
of the cells underground, and then that of 
Tryphosa among the foliage in another part of 
the same vineyard. But many others of the 
identical names in the Epistle occur among 
these inscriptions. Some, indeed, such as 
Urban and Hermes, are common names, so as 
to cause no surprise; others, such as Stachys 
and Patrobas, are comparatively rare, so as to 
arrest the attention more ; while such a com- 
bination as that of Philologus and Julia deserves 
special observation; the former word appearing 
among these monuments, and the latter in itself 
indicating a connection with the imperial family. 
On the whole, though nothing can be absolutely 
proved, it is difficult not to believe that we have 
here in modern Rome the ashes of some of those, 
in the midst of whose companionship St Paul 
preached the gospel in ancient Rome." I shall 



IXTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 45 

limit myself, at present, to a reference to two of 
these Roman friends and converts of St Paul, not 
only because their names are less known than 
others, but because, on account of compara- 
tively recent excavations in the city, a new 
interest has gathered around them ; I mean, 
the names, and I may add the households, of 
Clement and Pudens. 

Next to the discoveries which have been 
made, and are still being prosecuted, Hotl3eof 
on the Palatine Hill, in the old Palace CUmens - 
of the Caesars, no explorations have, in recent 
times, been of deeper value to the Bible student 
than those which are believed to have led to 
the identification of the House of CLEMEXS, St 
Paul's fellow-labourer, " whose name is in the 
Book of Life" (Phil. iv. 3). This illustrious 
convert was of royal blood, member of the 
noble family of the Anicii, and in person and 
character described by one of the Fathers of 
the second century, as " a man replete with all 
knowledge, and most skilful in the liberal 



46 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 

arts." While yet a boy of twelve years of 
age, he was consigned, in the absence of his 
parents at Athens, to the guardianship of tutors 
in Rome, who nurtured him in " manly studies 
and virtuous actions." Owing, however, to his 
speculative turn of mind, he was involved, in 
early youth, in a severe mental conflict, espe- 
cially regarding the immortality of the soul 
and a future life. In vain he betook himself 
to the varied schools of philosophy ; he only 
felt bewildered amid their sophistries and dis- 
putations. He even resorted to the magi- 
cians of Alexandria, in hopes that by their 
arts and incantations they might be able to 
conjure some human spirit back from the 
invisible world, to solve the question on which 
he found the most reputed oracles of earth 
were dumb. Meanwhile, he heard the tid- 
ings that the Son of God had appeared in 
Judea. He listened to the glorious revela- 
tions of the Prophet of Galilee, from the lips 
of His servants in the Roman capital. His 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 47 



doubts were resolved; he embraced the truth 
as it is in Jesus with heroic confidence, and 
enrolled himself among the number of its 
faithful witnesses. In these days, when the 
name has attained an historical celebrity un- 
known before, it may not be uninteresting to 
add, that he is credited as having been the 
first bearer of the ' glad tidings ' to the city of 
Metz, which then in importance and popula- 
tion was one of the chief towns of France. 
We have good reason to believe from Euse- 
bius, Origen, and Jerome, that he became 
afterwards Bishop of Rome. Trajan, becoming 
jealous of his increasing influence, banished 
him to the Chersonesus, where, degraded 
to the condition of a slave, with a brand on 
his forehead, and subjected to cruel infamy 
and dishonour, he was compelled to work in 
the mines and marble quarries. At length 
his name was added to the noble army of 
martyrs ; for with an anchor round his neck, 
he was thrown into the sea, though the body 



48 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

was said subsequently to be discovered and 
interred in Rome.* 

Under the guidance of the Prior of the Con- 
Recent ex- vent °** St Clemente, to whom I had 
an obliging letter of introduction, I was 
enabled to explore the very interesting sub- 
structions, which, altogether owing to his zeal 
and enthusiasm, have been brought to light; and 
I would here desire to make, in passing, grateful 
acknowledgment of his courtesy and kindness. 
Church For long the Church of St Clemente 

of St 

Clemente. was considered one of the most vener- 
able in Rome, dating at all events from the 
twelfth century. It is situated on the slope of 
the Ccelian hill, between St John Lateran and 
the Coliseum, and possesses much still in its 
interior to gratify the lover of ancient ecclesi- 



* We may give the following as a specimen of the credulity 
of the age (although in this case the myth must be allowed to 
be a beautiful one), that angels constructed a tomb and built a 
Church over it in the depths of the sea, where the martyr's body 
fell ; and that year by year, on the anniversary of his death, the 
waves receded to permit the faithful to visit his sepulchre ! 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 49 

astical architecture. I may particularise its 
Atrium, surmounted with a Gothic canopy of 
the thirteenth century ; its unique choir in front 
of the tribune, encircled with a balustrade of 
white marble, flanked by two quaint pulpits or 
'ambones;' its handsome candelabrum in [Mo- 
saic; its pavement studded with fragments of 
green porphyry ; the strange picture on the 
vault of the tribune, containing a representation 
of the four rivers flowing in paradise; and among 
other symbols in this latter, that oldest and most 
remarkable one (met with also several times in 
the Catacombs), of the Peacock, as the emblem 
of Immortalitv. From the incongruities in the 
style, as well as from the careless way in which 
portions of the more elaborate work are put 
together, the eye of the experienced archaeolo- 
gist or architect at once discerns, that the exist- 
ing building must have been indebted to some 
other edifice or edifices for much that is most 
valuable. Accordingly, the interest attaching 
to it has been considerably superseded by the 



SO INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

discovery made of a still older Church below, 
oiaer Basi- which ver y possibly may have been de- 
spoiled of many of its adornments, and 
especially of its beautiful choir, to enrich the 
newer Basilica built in later times above it. 
The carvings and inscriptions, and specially the 
marvellous number of frescoes, throw much 
valuable light on the Christianity of the earlier 
centuries. The cause of the discovery may be 
stated in a few words. As the Prior, thirteen 
years ago, was engaged in making some repairs 
in the contiguous convent, he came upon a wall 
covered with some pictures, which induced him 
to prosecute his researches ; these led to the 
disclosure of an ancient edifice resting on mas- 
sive stonework. He has succeeded in clearing 
out the two aisles and nave, and tracing the line 
of pillars which supported the roof. We ap- 
proached this singular subterranean Basilica 
with lighted tapers, by a flight of steps leading 
from the sacristy of the upper building, a depth 
of twenty feet It would be entirely out of 



IN TROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 5 I 

place here to enter into a further detail of this 
interesting edifice* with its crude works of art, 
paintings, inscriptions, sculptures, and precious 
marbles. The absence of the nimbus round 
the heads of the sacred figures in the frescoes, is 
itself a remarkable indication of antiquity, — 
that symbol never being employed by the ear- 
lier painters. But the portion which possessed 
the deepest interest to me, was that in connection 
with the supposed discovery of the " House" or 
" Oratory" of St Paul's fellow-labourer ; HouKe of 
the very Oratory which he was re- 
puted by tradition to have "built in his own 
palace at the foot of the Ccelian," and where 
the young catechumens were in the habit of 
repairing for instruction in the mysteries of 
the faith. It is well known that during the 
first three centuries, Christians were forbidden, 
on their own account, to erect Churches ; their 

* A full and interesting account of these discoveries will be 
found in "St Clement and his Basilica in Rome," by Rev. 
Joseph Mulhooly. Rome, 1869. Also see Murray's excellent 
" Handbook of Modem Rome." 



5 2 INT ROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 



assemblages for worship and communion took 
place in private, in the larger houses belong- 
ing to their brethren. If, therefore, the iden- 
tification of this vaulted chamber be correct 
(and we have the strongest reason to believe 
that it is so), then it must have been the dwell- 
ing in which the early disciples were in the 
habit of assembling : nay, after being released 
from his first imprisonment, where St Paul him- 
self, along with Barnabas, Luke, Aristarchus, and 
others, may have, more than once, met to speak 
of the things of the kingdom, and to comme- 
morate together their Lord's dying love in His 
own memorial rite. Moreover, after the esta- 
blishment of the Christian religion under Con- 
stantine, it is very natural to suppose that the 
original dimensions of the Oratory would be 
extended, until they embraced the Basilica 
which has recently been excavated. The ap- 
proach to it is along a wall formed of enormous 
blocks of volcanic tufa, indicating a very early 
period, antecedent to the Christian era ; indeed, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 53 

supposed by some to be as old as the times of 
Servius Tullius. We could trace in rude cha- 
racters, on several of the recently-exhumed 
frescoes, the name of the imperial convert. 
The House or Oratory itself has an arched roof, 
symmetrical in its structure, and composed of 
richly-jcarved square stones. The only anomaly 
in connection with it, and one which has given 
rise to considerable discussion among antiqua- 
rians, is the discovery of a small Temple of 
Mythras, with a Pagan altar of marble in the 
centre, in which is a bas-relief of Mythra sacri- 
ficing a bull. But there are ingenious and satis- 
factory explanations regarding this proximity of 
the heathen shrine, which we need not here par- 
ticularise, but which go far to refute any objec- 
tions to the accepted theory of the adjoining 
chamber having been the veritable house of 
so distinguished a member and ornament of the 

o 

early Church. It may only further be added, 
that the supposed remains of Clement, also the 
few bones said to have been left by the lions 



54 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

who were let loose in the neighbouring amphi- 
theatre on the martyred Ignatius, have been 
interred in a beautiful tomb and shrine, situ- 
ated immediately under the altar of the upper 
Church. 

Having thus explored with deep interest the 
House of House of Clement, I was desirous of 
u ms> having a similar gratification with re- 
gard to that of another of St Paul's reputed con- 
verts, of whose name he also makes honourable 
mention (2 Tim. iv. 21), I mean that of PUDENS. 
The story of Pudens has a peculiar interest to us. 
He seems to have been the son of a Roman 
senator, sent by the Emperor Claudius to be 
Governor of the Regni — the southern province of 
England, embracing Surrey and Sussex. While 
there, he sought in marriage the hand of the 
daughter of a British King (some say Cogidub- 
nus, some Caractacus), a beautiful young Prin- 
cess of the age of seventeen, who, in the mean- 
time, was sent to Rome. In order to obviate 



I NT ROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER, 5 5 

any bar to marriage with a foreigner (one, too, 
who probably occupied the position of a hostage 
at the Imperial Court), Pudens, on returning 
himself to the capital, requested the Emperor — 
his imperial patron — to adopt her in the first in- 
stance as his daughter, and to bestow upon her, 
from his own name, that of CLAUDIA. and Clau _ 
Claudia had already become a Chris- 
tian, under the teaching and influence probably 
of a noble matron, Pomponia Grsecina, w T hose 
husband, Aulus Plautius, had lately been in 
command of the invading Roman army. After 
being resident for some time in the capital, the 
union took place of the Island Princess with the 
Christian Senator, whose names are thus appro- 
priately found conjoined in St Paul's concluding 
salutation in his Second Epistle to Timothy, — 
"Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia:" indicating the 
interesting fact, that during his last imprison- 
ment, when others less courageous were deterred 
from crossing his dungeon, he was visited there 
by the daughter of a British King. 



SO INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Regarding the character of Pudens, the influ- 
ence for good he exerted in the early Church, 
or his special connection with St Paul in the 
citv of their common residence, we know 
nothing. He would seem to have had the art 
of conciliating foes, as well as retaining friends. 
We find Martial, the poet, informing him that 
he " would dedicate no more verses to him, see- 
ing he had changed his religion." Notwith- 
standing this threat of alienation, however, they 
had lived and died with their friendship un- 
broken ; for the poet dedicates an ode on the 
birth of his first child, and subsequently wrote a 
lament on his death. Through his matrimonial 
alliance, it is curious to know that this Roman 
patrician was the possessor of land in the 
southern counties of England ; for in mak- 
ing excavations in the town of Chichester 
in 1723, a Roman inscription was discovered, 
on which it is expressly stated that the site 
of a temple, erected by a guild of carpen- 
ters or smiths, dedicated to Neptune and 



IXTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. $J 

Minerva, by the authority of the Imperial 
Legate, was " granted free " by Pudens, the son 
of Pudentins* 

He had two daughters, Pudentiana and Prax- 
edes, f the former of whom, by means of the 
Church which bears her name, has done more 
than anything else to perpetuate her father's 
memorv. 

* See an interesting Treatise, entitled " Claudia and Pudens." 
By Archdeacon Williams. 1848. The inscription is now pre- 
served in a summer-house in the gardens of Goodwood, and is 
as follows, — the letters that are wanting being conjecturally 
supplied : — 

" [Xjeptuni et Minervae temphtm 

[Pr]o saline d[omuJs divinse 

[ex] auctoritat [eTib.] Claud. 

[Co]gidubni r. leg. aug. in Brit. 

[Colle]gium fabror. et qui in eo, 

[a sacris] sunt d s. d. donante aream 

[Pudjente Pudentini fil." 

See too Alford's "Excursus on Pudens and Claudia" Greek 
Test., vol. hi., Proleg. , pp. 104, 105, where it is surmised that 
"Pudens may possibly have been attached in capacity of adju- 
tant to King Cogidubnus, and that his presentation of an area 
for a temple to Neptune and Minerva may have been occasioned 
by escape from shipwreck, the college of carpenters (shipbuilders) 
being commissioned to build it to their patrons, Neptune and 
Minerva." P. 104. 

+ I did not see the Church erected to the latter, but i believe 
it possesses valuable mosaics. 



58 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

The Church of St Pudentiana, now in con- 
Church of nection with a Bernardine Convent, is 

St Puden- 
tiana. built on the Viminal Hill, not far from 

Santa Maria Maggiore. It is in one respect 
even of greater interest than St Clemente, from 
its undoubted antiquity, being the Mother 
Church of Rome, the primitive Cathedral of the 
metropolis, possibly, indeed, of Christendom. 
It was built (or perhaps more accurately, as we 
shall immediately note, enlarged and extended) 
by Pope Pius L, A.D. 141, on the site of the 
" House of Pudens." The Church itself is rich 
in mosaics, dating, according to some, from 
the ninth, according to others, from the fourth 
century. It is said to contain in a deep well 
(although this is exceedingly doubtful) the 
bones of three thousand martyrs. In the roof of 
the beautiful side chapel of the Csetanis, though 
of a much later date, amid other decorations 
well worthy of note, is a singular mosaic, repre- 
senting the daughters of the Christian Senator 
collecting by sponges into a golden vase or urn, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 59 

the blood of some of these faithful witnesses 
In the apse, at the extreme end, opposite the 
entrance door, and immediately above the altar, 
is a similar picture. It exhibits Christ en- 
throned, with the Apostles Paul and Peter on 
eitherside,and the two daughters of Pudens hold- 
ing in their hands a crown of martyrdom. These 
devoted women, who in childhood and youth 
may have enjoyed the prayers, or listened to the 
counsels of the great Apostle, seem to have led 
lives of loftiest self-sacrifice and consecration. 
The great wealth bequeathed to them on the 
decease of their parents and their brother, was 
freely dedicated to the service of Christ, and 
to supply the needs of their poorer brethren. 
During the first great persecution they braved 
every insult and danger for the sake of the truth 
and its defenders, personally ministering to 
those who were in prison and in chains, bringing 
the tortured and mutilated to their own home on 
the Viminal, binding up their wounds, and with 
their own hands shrouding the martyrs who had 



60 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

been denied the rites of burial by their mur- 
derers. 

I was specially desirous, in visiting this 
Recent Ex- Church, of obtaining access (in which 
cavations, there j g SQme difficulty) to the recent 

excavations. I was fortunate enough, acci- 
dentally, to meet at the entrance Mr P , 

whose archaeological enthusiasm, and his willing- 
ness to impart his discoveries to others, are in 
keeping with that of the Prior in the sister 
Church of St Clemente. It was by his own 
unaided efforts, after considerable difficulties 
with the Papal authorities, the excavations were 
carried out, and the interesting subterranean 
edifice brought to light. In his company I was 
enabled most satisfactorily and intelligently to 
explore these strange substructions. The mere 
substructions themselves cannot be compared in 
art-interest and variety of detail with those of 
St Clemente; — the most conspicuous are a 
bath-room ; one chamber with a spacious arch- 
way ; and another, on a lower level still, with 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 6 1 

vaulted roof and mosaic pavement of the first 
centurv. To these mav be added some under- 
ground passages, including the unmistakable 
cellars, where, in former days, were stored the 
" Amphorae n of this old Patrician Palace. But 
there was a profound interest, too, . in these 
damp, dripping, lonely vaults. After the old 
Roman Senator and Christian was in his grave, 
doubtless the Faithful would take refuse there, 
and, under the protection of those who inherited 
his name and his faith, utilise them as places of 
worship, when they dared not with safety meet 
in the Basilica above. In this other il Church in 



the House/' therefore, as in the case of A 

Associa- 
tions wii 
the Hon. 
of ' Pud ens. 



St Clemente, one could in thought re- th^House 



trace the past, and imagine the days 
when, within these very inclosures, the prayer 
was uttered, the hymn sung, the word of counsel 
and comfort imparted, the bread of everlasting 
life (the blessed emblem and memorial) broken : 
the hands of gentle love and tenderness, in 
whose veins flowed the blood of the Caesars, 



62 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

washing stripes, binding up wounds, wiping 
away tears, whispering into the dull ear of the 
scourged and tortured and dying, hopes "full 
of immortality " — composing their limbs in the 
last long sleep — an unseen but present Saviour 
rehearsing doubtless His own words : — " I was a 
stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye 
clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I 
was in prison, and ye came unto me" (Matt. 
xxv. 35). But such sacred associations were by 
no means confined to these underground places 
of concealment. That upper Church has this 
additional interest attached to it, over and above 
that of St Clemente, that it may not only have 
been built on the site of Pudens' House, but (in 
a less amplified shape, perhaps) may have origi- 
nally formed the very Basilica of his Palace. 
These Basilicas, attached to every great Roman 
mansion (as graphically described to us by our 
conductor), were equivalent to the Barons' halls 
of olden times in England, where assemblages 
took place of retainers and vassals. The name, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 6$ 

originally thus applied to Roman dwellings, 
came to be transferred to the Christian Church. 
Not only so, but when, on the establishment of the 
Christian religion in the Roman Empire under 
Constantine, the erection of ecclesiastical fabrics 
was sanctioned and encouraged, the shape of 
the Basilica was retained, as being most conve- 
nient in form, alike for conducting worship and 
accommodating worshippers. It is interesting 
for us, then, to think, that during the reign of 
Nero, this same hall of a Roman Senator, who 
had espoused the faith of Christ, may have had 
its doors opened to receive the handful of infant 
believers in the City of the Caesars. Many of 
those whose names are mentioned in the closing 
chapter of Romans, may have listened in that 
very spot to the words of eternal life, and taken 
sweet counsel together ; nay, as our reliable 
guide observed, as we passed over the pavement 
with its portions of ancient mosaic, " St Paul 
himself may possibly have been here." * 

* Among the other relics shown, is the half of the com- 



64 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 

But I pass to another locality which has its 
Basilica own special memories in connection 

on the 

Palatine, with St Paul in Rome. The most 
interesting hours spent in the old capital were 
among the excavations of the Palace of the 
Caesars, on the Palatine Hill. These, as is well- 
known, were commenced m,any years ago, under 
the auspices of Napoleon III., and are still 
vigorously prosecuted by the Italian Govern- 
ment. Among the other ruins and substruc- 
tions already disclosed, there is one which, 
from its more than probable association with 
the closing scenes in the life of the Great 
Apostle, specially arrested attention ; I mean, 
that which is known as the "Basilica Jovis? 

We have just been describing, in connection 
with the house of Pudens and Clement, the 
Basilica which formed an invariable adjunct 

munion-table said to have been used by St Paul ; the other half . 
being shown in St John Lateran. The legend, we need not say, 
is utterly unreliable ; but it is interesting even to note this tradi- 
tional connection of the name of the Apostle with the Basilica 
of his illustrious convert. 






INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 65 

to the larger dwellings of the more illustrious 
citizens. A similar Hall, only on a more im- 
posing scale, adjoined the Imperial Palace on 
the Palatine. Moreover, the latter was more 
particularly used as a court of justice, where, 
in the presence either of the Emperor or his 
legate, trials took place and political appeals 
were heard. It was, indeed, from these regal 
Basilicas, more than from the lesser private 
ones, that the form of future ecclesiastical 
places of worship, to which reference has just 
been made, was taken, — the tribune at one end, 
and the double row of columns running up on 
either side, forming a central nave and two 
aisles. The design was at once simple and 
imposing. It is certainly historically curious, 
(we may be forgiven the repetition) that a Pagan 
court of justice should thus have given architec- 
tural shape to thousands of Christian Churches ; 
this being specially the case with regard to 
Rome itself, where the oblong or rectangular 

E 



66 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

type is almost universal, culminating in the 
Great Basilica of St Peter's itself* 

While standing on that pavement of marble 
on the northern summit of the hill 

The pro- 
bable '-scene over l oking the Forum and the Arch 

trial. q £ -pj tus ^ t i ie q Ues tion is naturally 

suggested — If this be the Basilica of the 
Imperial Palace, can it be, or rather, can it fail 
to be, the spot where Paul stood eighteen 
hundred years ago, prosecuting his (t appeal 
unto Caesar," and where he probably con- 
fronted, at all events at his first trial, the 
Emperor himself? If the opinion of some 
archaeological authorities be correct, viz., that 
the Basilica discovered is of the age of Domi- 
tian, then, of course, these pavements and frag- 
mentary columns could not have belonged 
to the judiciary tribunal before which the 
Apostle pleaded his cause. But I venture the 

* So remarkable is this uniformity of the Basilica type in the 
Roman places of worship, that it becomes a positive relief and 
refreshment to the eye to gaze once more on the interiors of the 
Gothic Cathedrals and Churches of the North and West. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 6? 

assertion on the authority of one whose testi- 
mony is worthy of all credit, that if we are 
forced to surrender the claims of this precise 
building as belonging to the Pauline age, we 
may feel the strong certainty, at all events, that 
it occupies the very same position with the 
Court where the Apostle stood, though possibly 
on a lower level. Because, although the build- 
ing itself from time to time, whether under 
Domitian or Vespasian, might undergo altera- 
tion, there was no great likelihood of any such 
in the site. Moreover, the form and construc- 
tion of the Court itself was equally stereotyped 
and unchanging. 

We felt therefore, in gazing upon it, making 
every allowance for uncertainty, how fully we 
could realise the actual scene on the two suc- 
cessive occasions in which " the Ambassador in 
bonds" was sisted before a human judge and 
judgment-seat. At the farther end, where that 
semicircular wall incloses the building, and 
elevated into a platform some five feet above 



63 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

the pavement, was the subsellia, where sat the 
judges, twenty in number, and these generally 
of Praetorian dignity ; that central seat or 
throne (the " curule chair," though it has no 
traces left of its inlay of gold and ivory) was 
reserved for the Emperor or his consular legate. 
The capricious monarch, in terms of the Roman 
constitution, acting as chief magistrate, fre- 
quently gave his personal presidency, wearing 
the imperial purple and surrounded by Lictors 
with their fasces ; but in doing so, he was as 
frequently in the habit of ignoring the judicial 
wisdom of his assessors, and exercising the 
most absolute and despotic authority * Under- 
neath this raised bench or tribune were ranged 
the subservient lawyers. Near that circular 
stone of Egyptian porphyry and granite in 
front of the tribune, stood an altar, on which 
the robed Senators laid their hands, and swore 
to judge righteous judgment. A few paces 
farther back, where there are still the remains 

* See Josephus, xx. 8-11. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 69 

of a richly-wrought bar of marble, would stand 
the Apostle, chained by the arm to one of the 
Praetorian Guards, while his prosecutors would 
be seated near. There would be room also left 
for any advocate or advocates, who might be 
present to render assistance in pleading his 
cause. In his case we know there were none — 
"No man stood with me" (2 Tim. iv. i6)> The 
illustrious Confessor was left unaided to answer 
the successive counts or indictments. One 
Intercessor alone, mightier than the Caesars, 
was invisibly at his side : " Notwithstanding the 
Lord stood with me, and strengthened me" 
(2 Tim. iv. if). We may be sure that he who 
had so often appeared undaunted before the 
delegates of the imperial throne, did not quail 
when he was at last confronted with their 
master. " To him all the majesty of Roman 
despotism was nothing more than an empty 
pageant ; — the imperial demigod himself was 
but one of the princes of this world that come 
to nought. Thus would he stand calm and col- 



70 I NT ROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 

lected, ready to answer the charges of his ac- 
cusers, and knowing that, in the hour of his need, 
it should be given him what to speak."* So 
many of the public, to whom the comparatively 
limited space could afford admission, would 
occupy the vacant space in the nave and aisles. 
Among these, on the present occasion, we may 
include exasperated Jews from Palestine,f 
Ephesus, and Greece; hating Gentiles; J as well 
as the few friends who dared thus venture on 
perilous ground to w r ait the result of the 
pleadings ; while the surmise has been made 
(I believe by De Rossi) regarding one of three 
lower platforms outside, which have been un- 
covered in the course of the excavations, that 



* Howson and Conybeare, vol. ii. p. 457. 

+ Josephus informs us that Ishmael the High Priest, accom- 
panied by the u chief men" from Jerusalem, was in Rome in the 
year A.D. 61. A quarrel about the building of a wall was the 
ostensible reason, — the true one seems rather to point to the pro- 
secution of their vengeance against the turbulent ringleader, 
their formidable adversary now on his trial. 

J "So that all the Gentiles might hear" (2 Tim. iv. 17), in- 
dicating a large assemblage. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 



from it the verdict of the imperial tribunal was 
communicated, in cases of interest, to the crowd 
assembled below. 

We can only further imagine the close of the 
trial. The verdict of each assessor was written 
on a tablet, and these collected were com- 
pared by the presiding judge. In the case of 
the Apostle, the momentous and decisive Latin 
word, CONDEMNO, uttered by the imperial de- 
legate, would ring through the pillared hall 
and breathless audience, and perhaps there- 
after be proclaimed to the multitude gathered 
beneath at the entrance to the Forum. He is 
now " ready to be offered," and the time of his 
departure is at hand. 

There is always a halo of interest surround- 
ing the place associated with the closing The Ma- 

merti?ie 

hours of an illustrious man — the spot Dungeon. 
which witnessed the sun of a noble life hasting 
to its setting. Among other localities connected 
with St Paul's Roman residence, we surely may 



72 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

inquire, with pardonable curiosity, regarding 
the dungeon to which he was remanded, pro- 
bably for many months after his second 
trial ; where, it may be, after the sentence of 
death was pronounced, he had his last touch- 
ing interview with his dearest friends, and 
among these Pudens and Claudia ; — where that 
affecting final letter was penned to his son 
Timothy, overflowing as it is alike with fidelity 
and affection ; — the spot where the great cham- 
pion, feeling that the long battle was over, 
could ungird his armour and say, " I have 
fought the good fight." 

It was with these thoughts uppermost, that I 
paid my first visit to "the Mamertine dungeon.'* 
Like other venerable relics of ancient Rome, it 
has given rise to an amicable war of opinion. 
But like not a few such disputed localities, as 
we shall presently find, it has had new and 
important light within a recent period, indeed 
within a few months, thrown on it. 

For long a dungeon has been exhibited at the 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. J 3 

foot of the descent from the Capitol, below the 
small Church of S. Giuseppe dei Fal- 
eq;nami, close to the entrance to the tl ™ a i £, rt ~ 

o > son of St 

Forum, and beside the Arch of Septi- 
mius Severus. It consists of two chambers. My 
first exploration was under the torch-guidance 
of one of the ordinary ecclesiastic officials (never 
very satisfactory when you can have a better), 
who retailed the old baseless traditions, given by 
Baronius, of the impress of St Peter's head on 
the wall — the pillar to which he and St Paul 
were bound for the space of nine months — and 
the fountain which miraculously burst forth to 
supply water for the baptism of the two gaolers, 
Processus and Martianus, with forty-seven other 
converted fellow-captives.* The dungeon itself 
is of undoubted antiquity ; indeed, " one of the 
few monuments of the kingly period, built in 
the most massive style of Etruscan architecture, 
begun by Ancus Martius, and enlarged by Ser- 

* This same fountain, on the authority of Plutarch, is as old 
as the days of Jugurtha ! 



74 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

vius TulHus, from whom it took the name of 
Tullian." % It consists of two chambers, an 
upper and a lower (the upper is the older of the 
two), constructed of huge blocks of tufa, with- 
out cement, fastened together with iron rivets. 
One side of the lower chamber is excavated 
from the solid rock. There is a hole in the 
centre of the floor of the former, from which 
condemned prisoners were let down to await or 
undergo their fate. There can hardly be a 
doubt that these were the dungeons so accu- 
rately depicted by Livy as adjoining the Forum 
("imminens Foro"). In the lower one, among 
a list of other victims, the miserable Jugurtha, 
King of Mauritania, was left to perish by starva- 
tion. It is thus circumstantially described by 
Sallust, in his account of the execution of Cata- 
line's conspirators : — " In the prison called Ter~ 
tullian, there is a place about ten feet deep, 
when you have descended a little to the left ; it 
is surrounded on the sides by walls, and is 

* Murray in loco* 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 75 

closed above by a vaulted roof of stone. The 
appearance of it, from the filth, the darkness, 
and the smell, is terrific."* 

Such is the dungeon which has long been 
associated in Christian legend with the last 
scenes in the life of St Peter and St Paul. In 
1 commemoration of their imprisonment, deputies 
from all the Churches in Rome assemble bv 
torch-light on the night of the 4th of July, and 
in solemn silence kneel in front of the tradi- 
tional pillar, f While the antiquity of the 
cells, at present exhibited, is indisputable, a 
twofold reason militates against their ^ mjn . „. 

Difficulties 

being accepted as the place of the *££%&£' 
Apostle's captivity. The first is, that suc ' sa 
they were reserved for state prisoners ; and it 
is more than doubtful if "the Missionary of the 
new relieion" would be included under that cate- 



* See this and other details in Murray. 

+ It will be observed that I have carefully abstained from 
entering on the vexed historical question of St Peter's alleged 
residence, imprisonment, and martyrdom at Rome, as not falling 
within the scope of this volume. 



76 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

gory ; the second, that if there were no such 
restriction, and we are to consider them as 
the public prisons of Rome, their size would be 
manifestly inadequate for the criminal require- 
ments of so vast a population. The question 
occurs — Could this cell of Tullian, and its still 
older adjunct, possibly not be only the outer 
portion or vestibule of a more extensive range 
of wards which the ardour and patience of the 
antiquary might yet discover ? This is precisely 

p babi ^ e P r °bl em which, we believe, as we 
solution. now wr it e) j s i n process of solution, if, 

indeed, the solution is not already made. And 
here the public are again indebted to the 
singular enthusiasm and discernment of the 
President of the Roman Archaeological Society. 
It was my privilege to accompany him, shortly 
before leaving Rome, along with other friends, 
to a newly-discovered range of dungeons, in 
close proximity with the traditional Mamer- 
tine. Passing through a narrow street or lane, 
amid bales of unsightly goods — the most 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. *]*] 

musty of merchandise — we descended by a stair 
into a spacious subterranean cellar, now con- 
verted into a wine-vault, and which is con- 
nected with a series of others. There is a 
large circular aperture in the roof of the prin- 
cipal one, by which, it may be confidently sur- 
mised, prisoners, as well as their food, must in 
ancient times have been lowered ; and which in 
addition might serve for ventilation. The side 
walls are composed, as in the case of the present 
Tullian, of large blocks of volcanic tufa. The 
belief of the discoverer of these spacious sub- 
structions is, that they will be found to be the 
veritable wards or cells of the Great Prison, of 
which the one now exhibited formed a small in- 
tegral portion. Indeed, he had succeeded in 
discovering a narrow passage (partially cleared 
when I saw it, for several yards) leading from 
the lower Mamertine, and which (by continuing 
still further the removal of the debris and rub- 
bish which fills it up) may probably lead to an 
outlet in some of those grim wine-vaults w r e had 



?8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

just explored. If his theory be correct, it may 
serve so far to demolish the old traditional asso- 
ciation with the more limited dungeon below 
the Church of S. Giuseppe; but it would re- 
move other difficulties ; and in doing so would 
strengthen and confirm the belief that some one 
or other, at all events, of these gloomy under- 
ground cells must have been the place where the 
great Apostle bequeathed his dying testimony 
to the Church in all ages. We shall wait with 
interest the result of the excavations. 

If the scene of St Paul's last imprisonment 
^ _ have its mournful interest, so surely 

The Scene 7 J 

°£f r fyr- ls must that of his martyrdom * The 

worthless miracles which superstition 

and credulity have clustered around the reputed 

site are to be rejected without examination. 

* Owing to his Roman citizenship, he was happily saved the 
horrors of the Amphitheatre, and the ignominy and torture of 
crucifixion. We are far from sure that he equally escaped the 
preliminary scourging by lictors rods, inflicted on those con- 
demned to capital punishment. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 79 

But on reaching these gentle swells in the Cam- 
pagna some three miles from the Ostian Gate, 
and which have long been marked by the 
Church of the ' Tre Fontane/ I had every reason 
to believe I was treading the spot where the 
Church on earth was called to mourn the great- 
est of her losses, and where the Church in 
heaven had added to her roll the most illustrious 
name in her noble army of martyrs. Amid the 
confusing network of Roman streets, and the 
changes to w T hich the city's crowded localities 
were subject, there might be more ground for 
hesitancy and debate regarding the precise posi- 
tion of the " lodging " and " hired house ; " but 
the place of execution — one of the Tyburns of 
ancient Rome* — was not liable to such shiftings 
and vicissitudes. Besides, w r e may feel assured 



* This may not indeed have been the ordinary place of exe- 
cution, or that in most frequent use. It may possibly rather 
have been the spot where capital punishment was inflicted in 
cases when, on account of sympathy with the prisoner, or the 
cause for which he suffered, publicity was to be avoided within 
the city itself. 



80 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

the Faithful would not thus readily let go their 
recollection of what was invested with such sad 
yet glorious memories of suffering and triumph, 
— " the holiest spot in God's acre.'' The excur- 
sion to Aqua Salvia is not in itself an interest- 
ing one, so far as either ancient remains or 
modern surroundings are concerned, if we ex- 
cept the Temple of Vesta, and the recently- 
discovered " Marmorata." The base of the old 
Aventine Hill is skirted on the left, and more 
than one near glimpse to the right is obtained 
of " the yellow Tiber/' with its mud banks ; not 
rendered more picturesque, as we passed, by 
the recent calamitous inundations. The build- 
ing which most deeply arrests on the way, alike 
from its own singularity and antiquity, is the 
Pyramid of Caius Cestius, close by the old 
Ostian Gate.* It possesses, moreover, this addi- 
tional interest, that it was there when the unre- 
sisting prisoner was hurried by, under a sultry 
sun in the end of June, to the place of his exe- 



* s 



ee Engraving, p. ioo. 



I NT ROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 8 1 

cution ; so that, as it has been well said, " Among 
the works of man, that Pyramid is the only sur- 
viving witness of Paul's martyrdom." — (Howson 
and Conybeare) In passing along the straight 
road (probably, too, unchanged since chapeiof 

the two 

the first century), and which still con- Apostles. 
ducts to Ostia, the student interested in tracing 
the footsteps of the great Apostle, cannot re- 
sist pausing for a moment by the small incon- 
spicuous chapel on the wayside, to mark one of 
the scenes which tradition, although without 
any authority, has grafted on this memorable 
last journey. In the rude bas-relief above the 
door, is a slab containing a representation of the 
supposed parting which here took place between 
St Peter and St Paul. The words alleged to 
have been spoken at this farewell interchange of 
affection, have as singular a quaintness about 
them as the sculptures they illustrate. 

" And St Paul said to St Peter, Peace be 
with thee, Foundation of the Church, Shepherd 
of the flock of Christ." 



82 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

"And Peter said to Paul, Go in peace, 
Preacher of good tidings, and Guide of the sal- 
vation of the just/' 

We may adopt the safe verdict of Dr Cave, 
the earliest English biographer of both Apostles 
(1676), that however fictitious may be this and 
other recorded incidents, <( the best is, which of 
them soever started first, they both came at 
last to the same end of the race ; to those palms 
and crowns which are reserved for all good men 
in heaven." 

A little further on — if we may venture to refer 
Legend of to ^ e one ot ^er legend connected with 
Piautuia.. the martyr dom— Plautilla, a Christian 
matron and convert, placed herself by the way- 
side as the mournful crowd approached. She 
was desirous of obtaining a last look of the 
Apostle. She knelt as he passed, and with 
many tears besought his farewell blessing. The 
doomed prisoner made a request that she would 
give him her veil with which to cover his eyes, 
and that he would faithfully return the loan 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 83 

after death. The boon was granted ; and, after 
his martyrdom, he was said to have appeared to 
her, and to have restored it stained with his 
blood* 

Meanwhile, let us enter the Church of Tre 
Fontane. It is situated several hun- Church of 

Tre Fon- 

dred yards to the left of the Ostian tan ^ 
road. But for two churches adjoining, we 
should have said that it occupies a retired spot. 
Glimpses are obtained from it of Cavi, the 
Alban Hills, and the bright villas of Frescati. 
Imagination could vividly depict the tragic 
scene of that memorable day, eighteen hundred 
years ago. Ostia was not the deserted town 
which comparatively now it is, but one of the 
two "Liverpools of ancient Italy/' Puteoli being 
the other. The road to it, therefore, would not 
be, as at present, comparatively deserted in 
winter, and almost totally so in the summer 

* I recognised this old legend represented in bas-relief on one 
of the colossal bronze doors in St Peter's, which belonged to the 
old Basilica. St Paul is represented in the clouds restoring the 
veil. 



84 I NT ROD UCTOR Y CHAPTER. 

months, when the malaria with its pall of death 
hangs over the blighted soil. It would be 
busy rather with traders and wayfarers pass- 
ing to and from the capital and its maritime 
port Little would these crowds dream, as they 
were thus speeding along on their errands of 
business or pleasure, of all that was connected 
with that military escort — an unwonted cav- 
alcade of soldiers, and the figure who walked 
calm and unruffled in their midst ; or as, when 
pausing in that green hollow, they caught, it 
may be, in the bright sun, the flash of the 
executioner's sword, which summoned the hero 
to his crown ! 

We shall not stop to enumerate the mythi- 
cal tales and legends which the walls of this 
little church enshrine. These commemorations 
of the chisel are as painful and obtrusive in 
such a place, as are the modern whitewashed 
walls which surround the olives of Gethse- 
mane. They do not serve in any degree to 
vivify remembrances, far less to foster hallowed 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 85 

emotion. More impressive far, it appeared to 
us, would it have been, had the lonely spot 
remained uncenotaphed, without stone or tree 
to mark it, allowing the meditative pilgrim 
himself to recall the reality, and wake up to 
the feeling, ' Here the great Apostle died.' 
In entering the church, a modern marble slab 
on the wall to the right, contains an effective 
bas-relief representing the swordsman com- 
pleting his stern duty, and below T it an inscrip- 
tion commencing w r ith the words, " Paulo — 
Gentium — Apostolo." In the right of the tran- 
sept is the traditional broken pillar, encircled 
by an iron railing, which formed the block for 
the executioner ; while close by, are the three 
miraculous fountains, said to have burst forth 
at each bound as the severed head struck the 
earth. Over them are erected three altars, with 
a representation of St Paul in relief.* 

* The water of the nearest of these fountains is said to be 
still warm, the second tepid, and the third cold ! An arch- 
aeologist I incidentally met, conversant with Rome, and inte- 
rested in the subjeat of my inquiries, mentioned, that four years 



86 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

One other spot still claims reference, before 

piac of com pl e ti n g these memories of St Paul 

S Burtai l and in Rome - We naturally pass from 

the scene of his death to that of his 

grave. 

Whatever were the superstitious abuses to 
which the custom led, it was, we know, the 
habit of the Primitive Church most sacredly to 
guard the spot where martyr-blood was shed. 
St Cyprian is the interpreter, in a single sen- 
tence, of the sentiment of the faithful in these 
ages : " To the bodies of those who depart by 
the outlet of a glorious death, let a more zeal- 
ous watchfulness be given." Can we believe 

ago, when visiting the Church of the Tre Fontane, he had the 
curiosity to measure the respective distances between the reputed 
pillar of martyrdom and the three miraculous fountains. It was 
exactly seven feet. He mentioned further, that though reject- 
ing the tradition as utterly baseless, it was yet possible that a 
head could have made three such bounds after decapitation. In 
returning, however, recently to the same place, he found that 
the distance between these altars, over the reputed fountains, 
had been considerably and unscrupulously widened, so as better 
to suit architectural symmetry. Such is the versatility with 
which Rome can accommodate facts to aesthetic and other re- 
quirements ! 



IXTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 87 

that those who mingled in that weeping crowd 
on the Ostian way, would fail to secure for 
the mangled remains a loving burial ? that 
those, in the same or in a subsequent age, who, 
by means of rude sarcophagi and inscriptions 
in the vaults of the Catacombs, took such pains 
to mark the dormitory of their sainted dead, 
would omit rearing a befitting memorial in the 
case of their illustrious spiritual chief? "The 
grave of St Paul/' says Chrysostom, " is well 
known" (Horn, in Heb. xxvi.) ; and the asser- 
tion of this eminent Father had an augmented 
meaning in after ages, in the many thousands 
of pilgrims from all lands who flocked to the 
reputed shrine of the great Apostle. Sa?i Paoio- 

fuori-le- 

I can truly say, that independent alto- mura. 
gether of its associations with this devoted 
servant of his Lord, no Church in that city of 
churches (not even St Peter's itself) so impressed 
me, as did this magnificent ecclesiastical monu- 
ment, San Paolo-fuori-le-mura. It is situated 
nearly half-way between the Pyramid of Cestius 



88 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

and the Tre Fontane. It has no fascination, 
rather the reverse, in its outward architecture ; 
but its interior consists of a vast Basilica, with 
a row of eighty Corinthian columns (mono- 
liths) of polished granite. These were the gift 
of the Catholic sovereigns and princes of 
Europe, and are reflected, as in a sea of glass, 
in the floor of the nave and aisles. The origi- 
nal Church was built by the Emperor Constan- 
tine, A.D. 388, over the garden and cemetery, 
or rather catacomb, of a wealthy Roman 
matron converted to Christianity, named 
Lucina.* The building was enlarged under 



* It was in this same Catacomb of St Lucina that Boldetti 
discovered an inscription remarkable for its antiquity. The 
accuracy of the date he assigned it (in the age of the Flavian 
Emperors, end of first century, and consequently about forty 
years after the interment of St Paul) has been confirmed by De 
Rossi. The translation on the slab is as follows : — " As a rest- 
ing-place for Titus Flavius Eutychius, who lived nineteen years, 
eleven months, three days, his dearest friend, Marcus Orbius, gave 
this spot. Farewell, beloved." It is surmised that the Catacomb 
may have been commenced as a place of Christian sepulture 
immediately after receiving the body of St Paul. — See Northcote '$ 
"Roma Sottera7iea" 1869. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 89 

successive Emperors, and attained great splen- 
dour under the Pontificate of Leo III. in the 
eighth century, when it had nearly double the 
number of its present columns, with mosaics, 
and altars of rare workmanship. It possessed 
this additional interest to the British visitor, 
that as the Church of St John Lateran was 
under the special guardianship of France, so 
that of St Paolo, previous to the Reformation, 
claimed as its protectors the sovereigns of 
England. A calamitous fire in 1823 reduced 
the beautiful pile almost to ashes. Among 
the few portions of value which escaped the 
ravages of the flames, were the mosaics of 
the thirteenth century on the western fagade, 
and on the vaults of the Tribune. In the 
frontispiece to this volume, although the col- 
ouring is intransferable, we give the gorgeous 
baldacchino which occupies the space between 
the transept and the nave, supported on four 
pillars of red oriental alabaster, with their 
gilded capitals and Gothic canopy. It sur- 



90 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

mounts the traditional tomb of the Apostle, 
and bears the superscription : — 
" tu es vas electionis, sancte paule apostole. 
Pr^dioator Veritas. In Universo Mundo." 

More striking to me than all that costly splen- 
dour, — more impressive even, had I seen it, 
than the hidden silver sarcophagus, surmounted 
with a golden cross of a hundred and fifty 
pounds weight, — were the Apostle's own simple 
words. They seemed silently to suggest with 
what a sublime indifference, compared to nobler 
verities, he would have looked around on all 
that cold magnificence — 

" MlHI VIVERE CHRISTUS EST, ET MORI LUCRUM." 

In gazing on the Apostle's tomb, one other 
feature could not fail to arrest. In immediate 
Reputed juxtaposition with it, in front of the 

To?nb of 

Timothy, high altar, is a shrine of more modest 
pretensions, on which is inscribed the one name, 
which tells it own touching story — 

"TIMOTHEI." 
Here the ashes of the Apostle Timothy are 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9 1 

said to rest. Strong is the temptation, for once, 
not too exactingly to demand or scrutinise 
authority for the truth of a legend in itself so 
beautiful, that these two honoured servants of 
Christ, who had loved and laboured, wept and 
prayed, sorrowed and rejoiced together, are 
now resting side by side, a true " family bury- 
ing-place," the father and his " own son in the 
faith/'* 



* The last remembrance I have of that magnificent Basilica 
and its sepulchre, is not a pleasing one, and too faithfully 
attests the unchanged spirit and principles of the Papal Church. 
A friend had distributed, among the soldiers outside (who had 
gratefully accepted the boon), a few tracts, embodying simple 
truths, such as St Paul would have loved to inculcate ; and 
which, moreover, could not have injured, in the remotest degree, 
the susceptibilities of the most fastidious ecclesiasticism. They 
were seized by the priest, who brought them to where I was 
standing at the tomb of the Apostle, and burnt them at the 
lamps which surround his shrine. It would have been alike 
unavailing and perilous, in such a place, to have ventured to 
remonstrate. I remembered the pillar in St Paul's house in the 
Via Lata, the vase of blood, and the pendant fetter. That is 
Rome as she was — what she still would be. But I remem- 
bered, too, the silent voice in the pillar's inscription. It was 
Paul's own comment on the futile attempt to insult his ashes, 
" But the Word of God is not bound ! " 



92 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

After thus exploring, in a visit to Rome, all 
pictures that could be seen in connection with 

and Statues 

of st Paul, the great Apostle, perhaps these intro- 
ductory remarks would be incomplete, if I did 
not add a few words from personal observation, 
regarding any memorials of him there to be 
seen in sculpture, painting, or medallion. We 
have it on the authority of Basil, in his Epistle 
to Julian, that portraits of the Apostles and 
martyrs existed from Apostolic times ; and 
Ambrose speaks of an authentic portrait of St 
Paul.* Eusebius informs us that he had seen 
representations of the Apostles Peter and Paul 
in paintings. Chrysostom alludes to one which 
hung in his own chamber ; and Augustine men- 
tions "a certain Marcellina, who, in the second 
century, preserved in her Lararium, among 
her household gods, the images of Homer, 
Pythagoras, Jesus Christ, and Paul/'f And 



* See Mr Hemans' interesting work on Roman Antiquities, 
f See Mrs Jamieson's " Sacred and Legendary Art." Also 
Northcote in loco. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 93 

surely it would be nothing either strange or im- 
probable, that the earl}- converts, who embraced 
some of the members of wealthy Roman fami- 
lies (living, too, as we have seen, in senatorial 
palaces), should endeavour to have the face 
and features of one they so much loved and 
honoured, perpetuated by the painter's art. 

In modern Rome, there is neither picture nor 
statue of him at all worthy of celebrity; not 
one which bears the impress of genius, such as 
the Moses of [Michael Angelo in St Pietro in 
Vinculi, or the grand heads of Jeremiah and 
Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel by the same great 
master. It is worthy of note, that in almost 
all the representations of the Ap istle which are 
to be found in the present day in the city of 
his martyrdom, whether early, mediaeval, or 
modern, there are these two peculiarities. He 
is seen with a sword in his hand, sometim 
leaning on it, sometimes holding it aloft, — the 
emblem of that sword of the Spirit with which 
he fought and conquered. Also, he is almost 



94 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

invariably depicted in conjunction with St 
Peter ; the one as the Apostle of the circumci- 
sion sent to the Jews, the other of the uncir- 
cumcision — the Apostle of the Gentiles. The 
two best statues I can recall, are both compara- 
tively modern — the colossal one at the foot of 
the flight of steps leading to the facade of St 
Peter's, and another by Girometti adjoining 
the high altar in the San Paolo ; but they 
are both too conventional, with the Grecian 
face and drapery. It is curious that the statue 
nearest to the little Church where the sermons 
which follow in this volume were delivered, was 
one of the Apostle, occupying the niche between 
two Doric columns in the Porta del Popolo ; 
but it is poor, alike in sentiment and execution. 
" In the pictures of St Paul, the Greek type 
is also followed — the long flowing beard, blue 
tunic, and white mantle."* The oldest one in 
Rome, of the single figure, was painted on the 
walls of the Cemetery of Priscilla in the second 

* Jamieson. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 95 

or third century. He is there represented in 
the dress of a traveller, with sandalled feet — the 
Good Shepherd standing on his right, and the in- 
scription above, "Paulus — Pastor — Apostolus."* 
Next in point of age to this, is a mosaic in the 
Basilica of Sta Maria Maggiore. It is placed in 
the arch which separates the sanctuary from 
the nave. In the centre is a throne, with em- 
blems from the Apocalypse, surmounted by a 
cross enriched with precious stones, and St Paul 
and St Peter on either side. The most valuable 
painting of the Apostle, as a mere work of art, 
is I believe in the Lateran, which at the time I 
was in Rome was closed. The best which came 
under my observation, although considerably 
damaged, was in the curious old Chapel adjoin- 
ing the Basilica of St Agnese-fuori-le-mura. 
It is a fresco, not by the great Michael Angelo, 
but by his illustrious namesake Michael Angelo 
Carravaggio. The Apostle is represented in a 
contemplative attitude, with a book in one hand 

*See Bosio, Sott., p. 519. 



g6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

and the sword, as usual, in the other. I noted a 
curious mosaic, supposed to be of date the 
thirteenth century, above the altar in St Cle- 
mente, and another painting in the tribune of 
St Paolo, in a lunette, representing the Apostle 
as borne by angels to heaven. In former years, 
among the ecclesiastical pageants which at- 
tracted multitudes at Easter to St Peter's, was 
one at the close of Vespers on Monday. A 
Canon appeared on a balcony underneath the 
vast dome, and in sonorous voice announced 
that what were now exposed to the view of the 
faithful, were the famous portraits possessed by 
Pope Sylvester, — portraits which when shown by 
him to Constantine, were called by the Emperor 
" those gods named Peter and Paul."* These 
and other similar pictures are interesting on 
account of their antiquity : but undoubtedly 
the noblest delineation of the Apostle ever 
executed in Rome, or by Italian painter, was 
that designed for one of the tapestries in the 

* See Remans' "Christian Rome," p. 158. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 97 

Sistine Chapel, and which has now been for 
long the property of the British nation. Well 
has it been said of that great cartoon by no in- 
competent judge, "The sublimest ideal of em- 
bodied eloquence that ever was expressed in art, 
is Raphael's ' St Paul preaching at Athens/ " * 
Yet the same writer, with equal discernment, 
expresses doubt whether Raphael did well in 
adopting so violent a departure from the tradi- 
tional head (which was so much more expressive 
of the man of toil and care and sorrow, wasted 
with watchings and fastings), by substituting 
that of the conventional Jupiter. 

The medallions, pictures on ancient glass, 
drinking vessels, and lamps, though Medal _ 
quaint, inartistic, and possessing a honSy ^ c ' 
uniform type, are more interesting. One of 
those on glass, and one of the oldest, I copied 
as carefully as the hurried circumstances would 
permit from a case in the Library Museum 



"Sacred and Legendary Art," p. 226. 

G 



98 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

of the Vatican. It is reproduced at the end of 
the preface to this volume. The execution of the 
picture, whoever may be the unknown limner, is 
rude, and the eye the most defective part of the 
face. It seems to be in accordance with other 
traditional representations — "the head bald, 
the nose aquiline, and beard graceful." I am 
unable to decipher the meaning of the emblem 
above the head. In another similar glass vessel 
in the same compartment of the Museum, he is 
depicted surrounded with four scrolls. A copy 
of a valuable bronze medallion, three inches 
in diameter, of St Paul and St Peter, also 
in the Vatican, will be found carefully rendered 
in one of the engravings of Mrs Jamieson's 
" Sacred and Legendary Art." It is considered 
the earliest known representation of the Apostle, 
probably in the time of the Flavian Emperors. 
It was discovered by Boldetti in St Domitilla's 
Cemetery, in the Catacombs of St Calixtus, and 
is artistically and classically executed. But it 
is at present in a portion of the Museum to 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 99 

which, when I was in Rome, the public were 
forbidden access. 

And yet, after all, what is the worth of these 
imaginative representations? what, even st Paul's 

true por- 

had they been more reliable than they trait, 
are, would have been their intrinsic value, com- 
pared with the picture which, with photographic 
fidelity, the great Apostle has unconsciously 
given of himself as reflected in his Epistles. 
Character is the true portrait ; the alone en- 
during frescoes are good words and noble 
deeds. Chrysostom truly speaks of him as 
" though only three cubits high, yet tall enough 
to reach heaven/' Great as were his teachings 
and writings, his life was greater still. He 
authorises, in one sense (to use the familiar 
phrase), the copying of his likeness : but thus 
the sanction runs, u Be ye also followers (copy- 
ers, imitators) of me, even as I (or rather, in as 
far as I) am a follower (a copyer) of Christ" 
(1 Cor. xi. 1). " Follow me — copy me," as if he 
had said, "thus far, but no farther." In another 



IOO 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



place he gives the similar exhortation, when, 
holding up before the Church, not himself, but 
that One peerless, spotless Life and Example— 
(the only ideal and realisation of Christian per- 
fection),— using too a word which has the mean- 
ing of "intently gazing" (like the intent gaze of 
a copyist in transferring to canvas or marble 
some great original)— ''Wherefore, holy bre- 
thren, partakers of the heavenly calling, CON- 
SIDER . . . Christ Jesus? (Heb. iii. i). 




j^m." 




jupjjjjjBlS 
The Pyramid of Caius Cestius, and the Ostian Gate. 



SERMON I 



>f JpattPs %nrwuimmn\t of jris Jnrpse 



" I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians, 
both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as 
in me is, I AM ready (or earnest) TO preach the 

GOSPEL TO YOU THAT ARE AT ROME ALSO. FOR I 
AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST : FOR 
IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION TO 

every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and 
also to the Greek." — Rom. i. 14-16. 



L 
Preached at the Per:,-, del Pc?c:o. February 19. 1871.) 

Rom. 1. 15, id 

'•'I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at 
Rome also. For I am net ashamed cf the gospel of 
Chris: : for it is the power :: God unto salvation to 
every one thet believeth. 31 

HH'HIS is my first Sunday in ROME. A::_: 
-!■ surely no words could more appropri- 
[y inaugurate our services here, than those 
I have just read as a text. They are the 
noble testimony of one,, whose work has its 
most sacred associations in this imperial city. 
I have followed the steps of the great Apostle 
in other places, consecrated by his name and 
labours, In Jerusalem, the scene of his youth 
and early manhood. In approaching Damascus, 
at the traditional spot of his conversion, and in 
M the street called Straight," where his rayless 
eves and blinded soul received their natural 



1 04 ST PAULS ANNO UN CEMENT 

and spiritual vision. On the heights of Mars' 
Hill where he confronted the polished Athe- 
nians. Among the mounds and marshes of 
Ephesus, now a chaos of ruins — but where, in 
the zenith of its glory, and under the shadow 
of Diana's Temple, he unfolded the Truth as it 
is in Jesus. Finally, along the pathway of 
the Great Sea, and on u the Island called 
Melita," when he was pursuing his journey 
hither, to prosecute and terminate the world- 
wide commission, " Go thy way, for thou art a 
chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name among 
the Gentiles and kings, and the children of 
Israel." It is my privilege now to visit the 
place which listened to his latest testimony, 
when he was "such an one as Paul the aged ;" 
on whose temples and towers was shed the 
last gleam of a glorious life. In subsequent 
Sabbaths, we shall hope, with God's gracious 
help and blessing, to follow out these varied 
and interesting memories of St Paul — in his 
sojourn, labours, sufferings, and death in this 
old metropolis. 

In the words before us, we have the resolu- 



IN GOING TO ROME. 105 

tion formed by him in the prospect of setting 
his foot within its gates. They bring before 
us, in a single verse, the theme which, through- 
out his loner Hf e f sacrifice and consecration, 
is ever uppermost in his soul, — the glorious 
Gospel of Christ, aye, Christ Himself, " the 
Power of God/'' From the moment he was 
struck down, in that hour of mighty surrender, 
when he cried, " Lord, what wouldst Thou have 
me to do?" till the last breathing of his lips, 
" I am now ready to be offered, and the time of 
my departure is at hand/' we may say he had 
but one central thought, around which all others 
constellated : Jesus was with him first, last, 
foremost, midmost, upmost, and without end. 
Wherever he went, that theme was the same : 
to the astute philosophers of the Areopagus ; 
to the uncultured peasantry in the wilds of 
Upper Asia ; to the Ephesian elders on the 
sea-beach ; to the sailors in the midst of the 
Adriatic storm ; to the mail-clad warriors of 
this ancient capital. A hundred times over, in 
the course of his Epistles, is that name men- 
tioned, which is above every name — and the 



1 06 ST PA UL 9 S ANNO UN CEMENT 

repetition of it seems to impart a new and 
salient joy and energy to his whole nature. 
We never hear of him but once in tears, and that 
once was, when weeping over the enemies of the 
cross of Him he loved more dearly than all the 
world beside. Let us, then, as a befitting in- 
troduction to subsequent scenes and incidents, 
listen to the old but never thread worn story, 
which he announces it to be his purpose to tell 
once more at Rome ; — the theme of all themes 
— the power of all powers — the Gospel of the 
grace of God to dying men and a dying world ! 
In one of his letters written from Rome, this 
is his watchword and manifesto, " God forbid 
that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ/' (Gal. vi. 14). Again, when 
he intimates his intention of coming to Rome, 
he says, " And I am sure that, when I come 
unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the 
blessing of the Gospel of Christ" (Rom. xv. 29). 
May we be able, in some lowly measure, to 
endorse his words. 

In the immediately preceding verse, the 
Apostle announces his purpose, if it be the 



IN GOING TO ROME. \0J 

will of God, to preach "at ROME also;" then 
he adds "for" (and this is the connection of the 
text) — "for" (although Rome be the world's 
metropolis) " I am not ashamed to preach even 
there my loved theme, the Gospel of Christ, 
tl for it is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also 
to the Greek." Thus we have Romans, Jews, and 
Greeks, — all specially named and grouped to- 
gether, — a powerful phalanx of resistance. But 
this moral hero knew his weapons. He had 
ranged against him the powers of man ; but he 
was conscious of "a power'"' mightier than all, 
and which out of weakness made him strong. 

Let us dwell, for a little^ on each of the three 
clauses of our text in succession. 

I. " / am not ashamed of tlie Gospel of Christ" 
Now it is at once evident from this assertion, 
that there was something in that Gospel and its 
doctrines unpalatable to the w r ide circle to 
whom the Apostle wrote and spoke. And we 
are aware how well-grounded were his fears. 
The propagators of that Gospel were scorned 



I O S ST PA UL'S ANNO UN CEMENT 

and vilified as revolutionary fanatics, subverters 
of the ancient faith, disturbers of the public 
peace, turning the world upside down. In the 
words of " the chief of his own nation," who 
visited him subsequently in his Roman lodging, 
" As concerning this sect, we know that every- 
where it is spoken against," The men might 
possibly have been tolerated, but their theme 
was a branded tale. For what was the sum and 
substance of that theme ? Nothing else but this- — 
that the world, the proud world, in the haughty 
zenith of her glory, should come and lay that 
glory at the foot of a cross of shame ; and con- 
fess that, for salvation, its millions were indebted 
from first to last to a dying Redeemer ! Their 
poets and philosophers and soothsayers had 
dimly foreshadowed the advent of some great 
Prince, who was to descend on the earth and 
inaugurate an era of peace and blessing. Could 
these dreams possibly have so poor a fulfilment 
as in the incarnation of the Christ of Nazareth, 
the son of a lowly woman of Galilee ? What ! 
the proud Roman ! he who subdued kingdoms, 
stopped the mouths of lions— he who never 



IX GOIXG TO ROME. ICX} 

imagined any of his heroes could die, far less 
die an ignominious death — who dreamt of them, 
rather, as translated into palaces of glory or 
changed into constellations in the firmament : 
how hard for him to take in the truth, that One 
mightier than all his gods or demi-gods, the 
Saviour of sinners, was a crucified Man, who 
perished on a felon's cross ! And, what was. 
perhaps, more insulting than all. that Gospel 
(that new religion) was ushered, as in our text, 
before the world, by this its apostolic expounder 
and interpreter, as " a POWER." "Power!" 
who dared whisper such a new rival word in 
a Roman ear ? Was not their whole name and 
history and wide empire the embodiment and 
apotheosis of Power ? What power antagonistic 
to his own could a Roman tolerate ? Speak to 
him of power, he would point to the eagles on 
his standards,, or to the Temple of Victory 
crowning one of his seven hills, with its garnered 
spoils of vanquished nations. Speak to him of 
power, he would point to the subject-empires 
over whose broad territories these eagles could 
speed for days their unchallenged way without 



TIO ST PA ul's ANNO UN cement 

requiring perch or resting-place. " Thy work, 
O Roman !" said the greatest of their poets, " is 
to rule kingdoms." 

Again — The Jew ! Is it possible he can bid 
farewell to all his revered and time-honoured 
rites ? Is the Temple and all its lofty pageants, 
the pomp of his solemn feasts, the pride of his 
ritual, all to pale before the reputed Son of a 
carpenter ? Can he receive as King of the royal 
nation, a crucified Nazarene ? and that, too, 
when his own law utters the words — "Czirsed 
is every one that hangeth on a tree ?" 

The Greek I Is he to part with all his divine 
philosophy, to accept the teaching and the 
doctrines of one who perished by a cruel death, 
among a nation he esteems as barbarian f 
Amid the beautiful dreams of his own mytho- 
logy, that peopled every wood and grove and 
stream with a deity, must he say, with St Paul, 
as he stood amid the splendours of Corinthian 
art, " I determined not to know anything among 
you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified ?" Nor 
was it old Roman, and Jew, and Greek, who 
entertained alone this opposition to the Gospel 



IN GOING TO ROME. I I I 

— this criminal shame of its central cardinal 
theme. Alas ! human nature, to this hour, re- 
mains unchanged, and the offence of the cross 
will never cease. 'What!' says the pride of 
intellect, and the pride of reason, and the pride 
of self-righteousness, 'am I to stand indebted 
for salvation, to a crucified Man, to a dead 
God ? Is a mangled body and an accursed 
cross, the oracle from which the Lord Almighty 
is to address His rational creatures ? Am I, 
moreover, to get heaven, just as a beggar gets 
his alms — nothing of the purchase-price my own 
— all from the doing and dying of another?' 
Yes ! it is even so. " The foolishness of God is 
wiser than men, and the weakness of God is 
stronger than men." " The preaching of the cross 
is to them that perish foolishness ; but to them 
that are saved, it is the power of God!' And 
though now, Roman pride may scorn it, and 
Jewish bigotry may frown on it, and Greek 
philosophy may discard it ; yet the day is coming, 
when Roman, Jew, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, 
bond and free, will own that thorn-crowned 
Max, as " King of kings and Lord of lords I" 



112 ST PA UL'S ANNOUNCEMENT 



II. We come now to the second clause. This 
Gospel of Christ is " the power of God (or, 
omitting the article, which is not in the origi- 
nal, "power of God" — God's own instrumental 
means of saving men), — "Power of God unto 
salvation!' Of the dominant power at present 
in the world, we have reason to be tl ashamed ;" 
— the power of brute force — the monster-power 
of war — the power associated with Paganism and 
the savage ages. Let us confront the demon- 
power with the angel-power — the power which 
has been earth's greatest curse, with the power 
which has proved earth's greatest blessing — the 
power of guilty man to destruction, with the 
power of Almighty God " unto salvation." 
Without that Gospel of Christ, the world had 
not one ray of light on the subject of salvation, 
either from the guilt or the dominion of sin. 
Oratory, poetry, philosophy, taste, intellect, 
reason, were all baffled and confounded ; pro- 
fessing themselves on this great mystery to be 
wise, they became fools. The world had tried 
for ages and generations to solve the problem ; 
but every oracle was dumb on the great ques- 



IN GOING TO ROME. 1 1 3 

tion, " What must I do to be saved ? " The 
Greek might discourse on the loveliness of 
nature ; — he might speak of the theology of 
mountains and groves and forests and rivers. 
Yes, truly. We allow they are witnesses to the 
power of God : — we have no wish to depreciate 
their testimony. St Paul had none. He, surely, 
was feelingly alive to the glories of nature's 
scenery, who, standing on that same occasion to 
which we have already adverted, on Mars Hill, 
with their Acropolis before him, could, to the 
Athenians, so sublimely discourse on " God who 
made the world and all things therein, who 
dwelleth not in temples" (such temples as these! 
— pointing up to their adjoining Parthenon), 
" made with hands;"* or to the Lystrians, as 
he spake of " the living God, who made heaven, 
and the earth, and the sea, and all things that 
are therein ; who giveth rain from heaven, and 
fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and 
with gladness." -J- But listen, ye Greeks ! Pile, if 
you will, mountain on mountain ; ransack all the 



Acts xvii. 24. f Acts xiv. 17. 

H 



114 ST PAULS ANNO UN CEMENT 

glories of material nature ; bring every flower 
that blooms, and every torrent that sweeps in 
wild music to the sea ; summon old ocean from 
his deep caverns, and the myriad stars that gem 
the firmament ! They may, and do, silently and 
eloquently, speak on the theme of God's " eternal 
power and Godhead." But there is one theme on 
which " they have no speech nor language, — 
their voice is not heard," and that is, How is 
God to deal with my sinful soul ? With regard 
to this question, you have nothing to draw with, 
and the well is deep. 

Is there, then, no answer elsewhere ? Yes ; 
where the volume of nature fails, the volume of 
Inspiration interposes. The question is an- 
swered. The Gospel of Christ is " the power of 
God unto salvation ; " or, as St Paul expresses 
it in a kindred passage, " Christ crucified is the 
power of God!" He is the Power of God to 
atone for sin. He is the Power of God to satisfy 
justice, and meet the requirements of the law. 
He is the Power of God to rob death of its sting, 
and the grave of its victory. We hear much of 
the bygone power of man. The Nile, the 



IN GOIXG TO ROME. 1 1 5 

Euphrates, the Tiber, are washing, to this hour, 
the colossal memorials of that power. His 
sovereignty, too, in these later days, over the 
elements, is a mighty thing ; — his making the 
winged lightning his ambassador, annihilating 
space, converting the world into a vast whisper- 
ing-gallery ; — tidings from these awful battle- 
fields, or secrets in which the fate of empires 
and centuries are suspended, transmitted by a 
magic touch from capital to capital ; — the power 
of steam, too, like a fiery spirit, careering majes- 
tically over land and ocean. But what is his 
power when brought to bear on the soul, and 
the sinner, and eternity ? A voice is heard say- 
ing of, and to, all human might: — "Thus far 
shalt thou go, and no further : here let thy 
proud waves be stayed/' The world, as we have 
seen, had given it long eras to work out, if it 
could, the problem of its own self-restoration. 
But after these centuries of failure ; after God 
had given man his own time and means to ex- 
haust every effort to save himself, He says, — 
' Xow, listen to My own divine expedient : By 
lifting up my beloved Son on the cross, I in- 



1 1 6 ST PA UL'S ANNO UN CEMENT 

tend to draw all men unto Me ! ' Verily here is 
a new power, — " a new thing" on the earth. The 
world is to be conquered ; society is to be re- 
moulded ; time-honoured religions are to be 
overthrown ; Pantheons are to be subverted ; 
aye, better than all, souls are to be saved, 
by the Power of a silent transforming prin- 
ciple. " The battle of the warrior is with 
confused noise, and garments rolled in blood : 
but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. - " 
" He shall not strive nor cry, nor cause His voice 
to be heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall 
He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not 
quench : He shall bring forth judgment unto 
truth. " As the silent energies of nature (such 
as electricity and gravitation) are the mightiest 
of all, — so is it with this spiritual one. And 
the marvellous thing is, that it is a silent Power, 
dealing with hostile, opposing, counteractive ele- 
ments. It finds the soul in a state of disorgani- 
sation ; the Power unto salvation has to con- 
front powers unto destruction. It is Light in 
conflict with Darkness. But it is the Power of 
God ; and over this wreck, this moral chaos, He 



IN GOING TO ROME. I 1 7 

has only to utter the mandate, " Let there be 
light/' and light shall be. Ah ! there is no power 
that can bind the soul, or, rather, that can un- 
bind its fetters, like this ! You remember the 
maniac, of old, who dwelt among the tombs. 
No man could bind him. They had tried it: 
but he had burst their ligaments like tow, and 
roamed that dark graveyard. At last he spied 
on the white strand of Gennesaret, One of whom 
he had heard. It was Jesus ! See him now, 
sitting " clothed, and in his right mind." So 
with the soul still. There are many, who, in 
the mad fever of their passions, have roamed for 
years amid the place of the dead, " crying and 
cutting themselves with stones." But the Divine 
Redeemer, in the glories of His Person, — in the 
completeness of His work, — has stood before 
them. Unbindable, untamable, by all human 
means, they have taken a child's place at the 
foot of His cross ; and there they now are, 
sitting, with the peace of Heaven mirrored in 
their hearts ; " the joy of the Lord their 
strength.' 5 



1 1 8 ST PA UL'S ANNO UN CEMENT 

III. Let us advert, finally, to the third clause. 
" To every one that believethr After unfold- 
ing this great salvation, — the most gracious and 
glorious expression of God's own " power/' — we 
are naturally led to ask, who are the favoured 
recipients? what are their rare qualifications? 
Is it the godly, the virtuous, the rich, the 
learned ? Nay. It is, " to every one that be- 
lievethr " Every one/' The water of the way- 
side pool is not more free, than are the bless- 
ings of that Gospel. The poorest barbarian in 
the mountains of Pisidia, — the ragged outcast 
among the purlieus of Corinth, — the ignorant 
savage on the rocks of Malta, — -the Tiberias 
fisherman, or the blind beggar on the Palestine 
highway, — were not less welcome to the foot 
of the cross, than the learned Apollos, the 
Roman Praetor, or the high-born courtier of 
Nero's household. 

Nor is Christ crucified only free to all. He 
is also suited for all. Amid all the diversities of 
country, climate, language, manners, civilisa- 
tion ; in the polished age, the uncivilised age, 
the philosophic age, the war age, the utilitarian 



IN GOING TO ROME. 1 1 9 

age, — the human heart is found the same : and 
the One Physician, the one medicine, " Christ 
crucified," able to heal all diseases. To every- 
one ! We may follow the sun in his fiery 
course as he circles the globe, and in vain shall 
we search for the spot on which he shines, where 
this Gospel may not be freely proclaimed. The 
quality of water is not affected by the nature of 
the vessel which contains it ; the water is the 
same, whether it be taken in a golden goblet, 
or an earthen jar ; — by the king holding it in his 
jewelled cup, or the beggar that has no cup but 
the palm of his hands. So is it with the water 
in the wells of Salvation. Around these, the 
rich and poor, naturally and spiritually, meet 
together ; and whether it be with vessels of 
great, or vessels of small quantity, — vessels of 
cups or vessels of flagons, — the invitation is the 
same, " Whosoever will, let him take the water 
of life freely/ 7 " Him that cometh unto Me" 
(irrespective of all sins, shortcomings, moral dis- 
abilities) " I will in no wise cast out." Look at 
that scene in the early Church, Peter and John 
healing the impotent man at the Beautiful Gate 



120 ST PA UL'S ANNOUNCEMENT 



of the Temple. It was an acted parable of the 
Gospel-power of God unto salvation. That 
helpless cripple, at the all-powerful name of 
" Jesus of Nazareth/' cast aside his crutches, 
rose from his couch of abject helplessness, with 
strength in his powerless limbs, and praise on 
his long-sealed lips. And next day, when the 
two apostles were summoned before the high 
priest, with the rulers, and elders, and scribes, 
and interrogated thus, " By what power, or by 
what name, have ye done this ? " Peter nobly 
replied (and it is a reply applicable to every 
diseased, helpless, sin-stricken sinner, who has 
risen from his couch of misery and entered the 
Temple of grace, walking, and leaping, and 
praising God), " If we be this day examined 
of the good deed done to the impotent man, 
by what means he is made whole ; be it 
known unto you all, and to all the people 
of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ 
of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God 
raised from the dead, even by HIM doth 
this man stand here before you whole " (Acts iv, 
9, 10). 



IN GOIXG TO ROME. 1 2 I 

Such, then, was the announcement of Paul's 
purpose in coming to ROME. Such, rather, let 
us repeat, was the watchword and life-motto of 
this great soldier of the cross, from the hour he 
assayed his armour, till the hour, in this city of 
his closing years, he laid that armour down, and 
the good ficrht was finished. We shall find 
afterwards, how nobly he was able to redeem 
his pledge and uphold his testimony. With the 
dungeon-gloom around him, and anticipations 
more terrible still for flesh and blood before 
him, yet with the loved name and cause on 
his lips and in his heart, he could make the 
dying avowal, " For the which cause I also 
suffer these things ; nevertheless, I am not 
ashamed." 

Brethren, let me ask, in conclusion, the great 
practical question, Have you made this Gospel 
of Christ the power of God to your salvation ? 
Do you cleave with full purpose of heart to its 
glorious central truth — 

" This all my hope — this all my plea — 
That Jesus lived and died for me ? : ' 

and are you jealous of aught interfering with 



1 22 ST PA UL's ANNOUNCEMENT 



it ? It is said of one of the great Venetian 
painters, that, when completing a picture of the 
marriage in Cana of Galilee, in which the ador- 
able Redeemer was to form the central and 
prominent figure, he observed some golden 
cups and goblets introduced in the foreground, 
which served to divert the eye from the main 
Personage. He immediately took his brush and 
erased them from the canvas. The incident has 
been beautifully used by a well-known Christian 
writer to describe and illustrate the place which 
Christ and Him crucified should have in the 
believers creed and the believers heart. Let it 
stand out by itself in solitary power and gran- 
deur. Let nothing be suffered to detract from 
it. Let all other accessories be subordinate. 
Let them serve only to bring into bolder and 
grander relief, Him, who is "the chiefest among 
ten thousand, and altogether lovely." Every- 
thing else on which you peril your soul's safety 
is a refuge of lies — 

' " On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand ; 
All other ground is sinking sand." 

And, believe me, especially there is one place 



IN GOING TO ROME. 1 23 



— there is one time, above all others, when that 
glorious method of salvation will be found and 
owned to be the only upholding — the only 
saving power. Undervalue it as you may while 
you live, it will not be so in the last solemn 
moments. Who that has witnessed a death- 
bed scene, but must have observed how all 
other trusts and confidences, all other dogmas, 
and doctrines, and questions, pale into insigni- 
ficance. There is no name but One, then. The 
tongue can find no room — the heart can find 
space for nothing else but this — u Christ crucified 
the Power of God." It is not ministers, nor 
churches, nor rituals, nor creeds, nor rubrics 
then ! It is " the blood," sprinkled in that mid- 
night of awe and mystery on the soul's door- 
posts, which alone speaks peace, w T hen the de- 
stroying angel — the king of Terrors — is passing 
by. " None but Christ ! none but Christ ! " 
was the utterance of the dying Lambert at 
the stake. They are the same words which 
have awoke the silent echoes of ten thousand 
death-chambers, and hung on millions of dying 
lips. 



124 ST PAULS ANNOUNCEMENT, E TC. 

May the music of that name and the music 
of that theme gladden us through life ! May 
they cheer our souls in their passage through 
i( the dark Valley of the shadow ! " 



SERMON II. 

mV& letter ta i\t Romans ; $is <&«ai 



" So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the 
gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not 
ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; 
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For 

THEREIN IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD RE- 
VEALED from faith to faith : as it is written, the just 
shall live by faith." — ROM. i. 15-17. 

" But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss 
for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things 
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered the loss 
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I 
may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having 
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but 
that which is through the faith of Christ, the righte- 
ousness which is of God by faith." — Phil. III. 7-9. 



II. 

{Preached at the Porta del Pop oh , February 26, 1871.) 

Rom. i. 17.. 
" For therein is the righteousness of God revealed." 

LAST Lord's day, I entered on a brief series 
-* of discourses illustrative of incidents in 
the life of St Paul, bearing on his connection 
with this ancient capital of the Roman Empire. 
I began with the announcement of his own 
purpose and resolve in coming hither, viz., to 
preach the Gospel of Christ, as " the power of 
God unto salvation/' To-day, I would venture 
to direct your thoughts to what may still be 
deemed a preliminary theme ; but it is one 
which cannot well be passed in silence. Not 
only does it form the second special proposition 
consequent on the Apostle's announcement, " I 
am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are 
in Rome also (For, therein is the righte- 



128 st paul's letter to the romans: 

ousness of God revealed) ; " but it is the sub- 
ject, of all others, specially interwoven with his 
great Epistle to the early Church in this city. 

I need not further premise, by reminding you 
of the place that Epistle itself occupies, alike in 
the writings of the Apostle, and in the canon of 
inspired Scripture. It is the sublimest which 
issued from his pen ; — the most logical, argu- 
mentative, conclusive, — an epitome and com- 
pendium of divine truth. More than this, it is 
a repertory of comfort. And we may well ask, 
when or where was an "Afflicted man's com- 
panion" more needed or more welcome, than 
when that letter w r as sent within the gates of 
the metropolis ? For what was the position the 
Christians there occupied ? Truly, they were 
as sheep in the midst of wolves. An inhuman 
tyrant was reigning in the halls of Caesar ; while 
an obsequious multitude were too ready, with 
fire and sword, to carry out his behests of cruelty 
against the hated Nazarenes. They were trem- 
bling on the edge of a volcano ; — the slumbering 
forces ready at any moment to burst forth. 
Poor human nature would, at times, be under 



ITS GREAT THEME. I 2C) 

strong temptation to abandon the struggle, to 
surrender the unequal fight, and abjure the 
name of Christ. It is for these brave yet de- 
sponding believers the cheering words of the 
Epistle were penned. It is the rallying-cry of 
their great hero, — the trumpet-blast to nerve 
and prepare them for the battle. Take one 
extract from it; — that which is contained in 
the matchless eighth chapter. How their eyes 
would kindle, and their faltering courage revive, 
as they read aloud of "no condemnation to 
them that are in Christ Jesus !"* Called to the 
renunciation of beloved earthly ties, how would 
they be braced to the sacrifice and endurance, 
as they traced the glowing lines, i( Who shall 
separate us from the love of Christ ? " -f- When 
summoned to more cruel tortures, how the pre- 
cious words of the divine keepsake would sus- 
tain their mangled frames, — " I reckon that the 
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to 
be compared with the glory which shall be re- 
vealed ! " I How would it serve to mitigate the 



* Rom. viii. I. + Rom. viii. 35. $ Rom. viii. 18. 

I 



1 30 ST PA UL S LETTER TO THE ROMANS : 

gloom of the dungeon, or the horrors of the 
circus, their repeating to one another, " We 
know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God ? " * As Romans, too, their 
grandest dream, once at least, was that of con- 
quest : how would they be animated, as they 
heard of something far transcending the tri- 
umphs of those garlanded heroes they had seen, 
oft and again, passing along their Via Sacra and 
ascending the steps of their Capitol ? As Christ's 
warriors, how would they be sustained with the 
thought, that by loyal adhesion to His cause and 
fidelity to death, they would be made, at last, 
a more than conquerors" *[* through Him that 
loved them. 

But it is not to its treasures of comfort and 
consolation I desire, now, to direct your atten- 
tion, but rather to the great doctrinal key-note 
of the Apostle's teaching in that remarkable 
Letter; what would doubtless, also, form the key- 
note to his oral ministrations, when his longing 
wish came to be fulfilled, "X.o preacli the Gospel 

* Rom. viii. 28. t Rom. viii. 37, 



ITS GREAT THEME. 131 

to you that are in Rome also." After an irre- 
sistible, we may rather say, a humiliating de- 
monstration of our fallen state by nature, — that 
t: by deeds of law no flesh living can be justi- 
fied," — bringing in a culprit-world " guilty be- 
fore God," he proceeds to explain and enforce 
the topic of which we are now to speak. Having 
discovered and laid bare the disease, he reveals 
the antidote and remedy. He reaches the 
height of his high argument, in the revelation 
of "the Righteousness of God." "For 
therein is the Righteousness of God revealed 
from faith to faith." " Now the Righteousness 
of God without the law is manifest, . . . even 
the Righteousness of God, which is by faith of 
Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that 
believe." "We are made the Righteousness of 
God in Him." " That as sin hath reigned unto 
death, even so might grace reign through right- 
eousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our 
Lord/'* It is the Word — the Theme — we shall 
come to find on his tongue when the last 

* Rom. i. 17 ; iii. 21, 22 ; v. 21. 



132 ST PAULS LETTER TO THE ROMANS ,' 

shadows are falling : the music of the same key- 
note of his Roman letter, lingers in sustained 
energy in his dying song, and forms the closing 
glorious outburst of his dying lips, — " Hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness^ which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
will give me at that day." 

We shall state the general doctrine, as that is 
unfolded in other parts of Scripture, as well as in 
this Epistle ; and then speak of its experimental 
power and bearing, on the history and teaching 
of the great Apostle, 

The Believer needs a positive as well as a 
negative justification. It is not enough, that, 
on account of the vicarious sufferings and death 
of his great Redeemer, he stand acquitted at 
the bar of God, with the sentence (so to speak) 
of " not guilty" pronounced upon him. " The 
righteous Lord loveth righteousness!' At the 
entrance-gate of heaven the summons is heard, 
" Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation, 
which keepeth the truth, may enter in." It is 



ITS GREAT THEME. I 33 

" the righteous" who shall go into " life eternal." 
" Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun 
in the glory of the Father." Paradise lost, in- 
volved the loss of righteousness ; Paradise re- 
gained, is the regaining of the forfeited blessing. 
But if the King's daughter must be thus " all 
glorious," her " clothing of wrought gold," where 
is the shuttle to fabricate the gorgeous tissue ? 
In other words, where is such Righteousness, in 
the unqualified sense of the term, denoting abso- 
lute moral perfection, to be found ? Where is 
this perfect coincidence of the human will with 
the divine ? Can man himself effect or secure 
it ? " There is none," and there can be none, 
thus " righteous, no not one." The holiest and 
the best, weighed in the balances, are found 
wanting. God's strongest cedars have quivered 
and bent and fallen under the blast of tempta- 
tion. God's best heroes and saintliest men have 
been " of like passions" after all. They have 
nobly fought, indeed ; but have again and again 
succumbed in the battles of the soul — mourn- 
ful impotence and failure side by side with 
gigantic deeds. They enter heaven covered 



134 ST PAULS LETTER TO THE ROMANS: 

with the scars of the enemy ; with ruffled plumes 
in the helmet of salvation. To stand on the 
great Day of judgment attired in this their own 
imperfect righteousness ! The fire of God would 
burn up its gossamer threads, and leave them 
naked and speechless. Hear the testimony and 
averment, in this very Epistle, of the boldest 
and the best of these heavenly warriors, as to 
the shortcomings and deficiency of his loftiest 
aims and efforts : " The good that I would, I do 
not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do/'* 
Or of an older saint still, " Though I wash 
myself with snow-water and make my hands 
never so clean, yet wilt Thou plunge me in the 
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." *f* 
If the sinner, then, despair of having a. personal, 
he must have a borrowed righteousness ; he must 
stand indebted to another, for what he cannot 
obtain for himself. Like the Hebrews of old at 
the Exodus, he must not only go forth from 
Egypt with his chains broken, but with borrowed 
jewels. With (t earrings of gold, and chains and 

* Rom. vii. 19. T Job ix. 30. 



ITS GREAT THEME. 1 35 

bracelets of silver," he must march onwards to 
the promised land ; and that spangled attire, 
in which God's spiritual Israel are robed, is the 
glorious Righteousness which Christ wrought 
out by the obedience of His life. 

Brethren, let us have clear and distinct ideas 
of what that Righteousness is. Let us not blur 
the peerless truth. Let us not pare- it down or 
defraud it of its own grand symmetry and pro- 
portions. Let us not think of it as merely 
implying that Christ has set before us an abso- 
lute example of human excellence, — a perfect 
divine copy, — which we are to seek to imitate. 
Were it so, from being a doctrine of surpassing 
comfort, it would rather lead to a depressing 
and hopeless despondency. Gazing on that 
spotless Model, would only more assuredly con- 
vince of the utter impossibility of ever attaining 
to any measure of acceptable obedience. It 
would only bring home to the soul, a crushing, 
overwhelming sense of its own deficiencies, and 
fill it with dismay at the thought of standing at 
the tribunal of a holy God ! But that Righteous- 
ness is imputed — put down to our account — 



I36 ST PAULS LETTER TO THE ROMANS! 

reckoned as if it were our own. We stand 
accepted, in the garment of our Elder Brother. 
Listen to some Scripture testimonies on this 
great truth. " I bring near/' says God, " My 
Righteousness." * Daniel speaks of the advent 
of Messiah the Prince, after seventy weeks of 
years, " to finish transgression, and to make 
an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for 
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteous- 
ness. " f " I will greatly rejoice in the Lord," 
says the believer, or the Church, in the pro- 
phecies of Isaiah ; " my soul shall be joyful in 
my God ; for He hath clothed me with the gar- 
ments of salvation, He hath covered me with 
a robe of righteousness." J "This is the name 
whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righte- 
ousness/^ Not to enumerate other references 
in this Epistle to the same theme, in the fifth 
chapter, the Apostle draws a beautiful paral- 
lelism between the two Adams — the one, " of 
the earth, earthy ; " the other, " the Lord from 
heaven : " the two federal heads or representa- 



* Isa. xlvi. 15. + Dan. ix. 24. 

J Isa. lxi. 10. § Jer. xxiii. 6 



ITS GREAT THEME, 137 

tives of the two covenants, — the covenant of 
works, and the covenant of grace. In the one 
case, the sin of the first Adam has been im- 
puted to all his posterity. We have fallen in 
him ; the taint of corruption and the penalty 
of death has been transmitted by him from 
generation to generation. I do not pause to 
examine the difficulties of that doctrine. How- 
ever strange and anomalous it may seem that 
we should be made to stand responsible for 
the guilt and doings of another; — however 
pride and reason may reject and repudiate the 
truth, — I take it as it stands, a recorded fact, a 
solemn statement in the Word of God. But 
if there be apparent mystery in the doctrine 
of the imputation of sin, objection to that 
doctrine, if not disarmed, is surely at least 
neutralised, by looking at it, side by side, with 
the glorious parallel and counterpart truth — 
that the Righteousness of Jehovah-Jesus, the 
federal Head of the second covenant, is in the 
same manner imputed to all who believe. " As 
by the offence of one, judgment came upon all 
men unto condemnation ; even so by the righte- 



138 st paul's letter to the Romans: 

ousness of one, the free gift came upon all men 
unto justification of life. For as by one man's 
disobedience many were made sinners, so by 
the obedience of one shall many be made 
righteous." * 

Such, then, is the truth contained in the text ; 
— Jesus, the Lamb of God, in His life of sinless 
obedience, has procured that robe for me. He 
has not only died in my room, to save me from 
sin's penalty, but He has lived in my room, to 
present me with a free gift of spotless righteous- 
ness. All that wondrous life of His, from the 
cradle to the cross, was a weaving of the needed 
garment ; His kindness, His love, His unselfish- 
ness, His submission, His humility, His meek 
acquiescence in His Fathers will, all these have 
been put down to my account, reckoned as if, 
I had done them. By casting this divinely- 
wrought garment over us, all our blemishes 
and shortcomings and deficiencies are covered 
and concealed. The eye of a holy God, in 
looking upon us, can see " neither spot nor 

* Rom. v. 18, 19. 



ITS GREAT THEME. 1 39 

wrinkle, nor any such thing." " See/' exclaims 
the Psalmist, as he screens himself behind the 
burnished shield of this glorious Righteousness, 
hiding all his own defects and unworthiness, 
— " See God our shield, look on the face of 
Thine Anointed !" 

Shall we go to the outer world for some 
image to illustrate this great doctrine ? You 
have seen, in our own land, summer's dying sun 
bathing the hills in a blaze of light. The 
dark purple summits, the rugged corries, the 
splintered granite peaks, were all hid from view, 
buried and lost in the excess of that setting 
radiance. That is the picture of the soul, with 
all its yawning chasms of guilt and vileness, lost 
and hidden in the glory of Christ's righteous- 
ness. You have seen the rugged root of some 
unsightly tree cast into a fire. Its rugged- 
ness is lost in the flames ; it has itself soon 
become one mass of ruby splendour. So with 
the soul cast into this glowing fire of " imputed 
righteousness " — the eye even of Infinite purity 
can see nothing but a mass of radiant glory. 
Or, shall we go again for typical illustration, 



140 st Paul's letter to the Romans: 



to the surer page of Scripture ? Open the 
Old Testament, teeming as it is with pictures 
of the great coming salvation, and behold both 
phases of the work of Jesus, atoning for sin 
by His death, and working out righteousness 
by His life : God hath joined them together, 
and let not man put them asunder ! We love 
to look at the impressive type of the scape- 
goat, — the hands of the priest laid upon its 
head, and the innocent animal bearing the 
imputed load away to a land of oblivion. 
We see, in this, the representation of the 
former truth — our sins laid on the head of 
the surety Saviour. But I go to other 
symbols. I go to the earliest type of all, and 
see the glorious doctrine of Christ's imputed 
righteousness shining amid the blighted bowers 
of Eden. I see the guilty pair at first screen- 
ing their nakedness with the covering of fig 
leaves sewed together, but which are speedily 
superseded by other garments divinely gifted 
and provided (Gen. iii. 7-21). These " coats of 
skins," we have every reason to believe, were 
those of animals slain in sacrifice : if so, they 



ITS GREAT THEME. I4I 

formed, surely, expressive emblems of the gar- 
ment of righteousness provided through the obe- 
dience and death of a mightier Victim, the Lamb 
thus " slain from the foundation of the world." 
Or shall we take a later typical vision. Joshua, 
the High priest, the type and representative of 
the ransomed sinner, stands before the Lord. 
He is a redeemed man, — his sins are forgiven, — 
he is a "brand plucked from the burning." But 
see his dress : he is attired in filthy garments. 
High priest as he was — redeemed as he was — 
a monument of grace — he stands in tattered 
clothing. What says the covenant angel ? He 
strips off the miserable vestments, clothes him 
with change of raiment, and sets " a fair mitre on 
his head." Behold the living picture of Christ's 
righteousness put upon us ! From being clad in 
beggars' garments, " wretched, and miserable, 
and poor, and blind, and naked," we are 
royally robed, royally crowned. We are made 
" kings and priests unto God," and arrayed as 
such. What says the believer in the song? 
"I am black but comely:" black in my own 
righteousness, comely through the righteous- 



142 st paul's letter to the romans : 

ness and comeliness of another. How could 
the Lord address His Church in that same 
precious portion of Scripture, unless He re- 
garded it as a fortress gleaming with a glory 
not its own ? " Thy neck is like the tower of 
David, builded for an armoury, whereon there 
hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of 
mighty men/' Nor need we pause with the 
recorded testimony of the Church in ancient 
times. What formed the theme of the glorious 
company of Apostles and the goodly fellow- 
ship of prophets, has been the precious jewel in 
the creed of holy men of all subsequent ages. 
See how Luther clings to it : — " He gives me 
what is His, and I give Him what is mine ; I 
give Him all my sins, and He gives me back in 
exchange, all His righteousness." 

And although on this we cannot now enter, 
full and ample is the warrant for receiving and 
appropriating the offered garment. "The righte- 
ousness of God which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ, is unto all, and upon all them that 
believe, for there is no difference/' * The 



* Rom. iii. 22. 



/ 



ITS GREAT THEME. 1 43 

Elder Brother has a treasury filled with these 
garments — " the best robe " of the parable. All 
that we need is to use the key of faith to un- 
lock it: — "It is the righteousness which is of 
God by faith!' Accept it ; reach forth the hand 
of faith to take this richer robe than Tyrian 
loom ever wrought — this garment of richer gold 
than Ophir mines ever produced. It is not 
beyond the reach of one here present. Listen to 
God's own inspired description of it in this same 
Epistle : — " The righteousness which is of faith 
speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart 
who shall ascend into Heaven?''' (i.e., it does not 
ask you to attempt the impossibility of scaling 
the heavens to bring it down), "or who shall 
descend into the deep ?" (it does not demand a 
similar impossibility of descending into the 
depths of the sea or the caverns of the earth 
to bring it up). " But what saith it ? The word 
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy 
heart, the word of faith which we preach " 
(Rom. x. 6-8). 

Touching and very instructive is this subject 



144 ST Paul's letter to the romans 



in connection with the life and character of that 
great Apostle whose footsteps we are now track- 
ing in this city of his habitation. In a letter of 
his (a. portion of which we read at this morning's 
service), written not to Rome, hut from Rome, 
to his best-loved Church at Philippi, his first-be- 
gotten children in the Gentile world, we find him 
enumerating particularly his " gains," — his rare 
catalogue of natural virtues and religious privi- 
leges ; what the world w r ould have called ' a 
splendid righteousness/ How many would 
have coveted him,- — lived and died, happy, in the 
conscious possession of so distinguished a stock 
of merit ! " If any other man thinketh that he 
hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I 
more : circumcised the eighth day, of the stock 
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew 
of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Phari- 
see ; . . . touching the righteousness which is 
in the law, blameless. But," he adds, "what 
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
Christ." * And it must indeed have been no 

* Phil. iii. 4-7. 



ITS GREAT THEME, 1 45 

small effort for him, to discard all he once so 
fondly loved and prized, and to which he so 
proudly clung. Sad to go to that gallery of 
pleasant pictures which he himself had hung in 
the chambers of his soul, and with his own hand 
to wrench one by one from its place ; — to tear 
sculpture by sculpture from niche and pedestal, 
and to write upon these walls, so lately gleam- 
ing with fancied righteousness, "All loss for 
Christ!' The seaman does not grudge taking 
to pieces his old rotten boat ; demolishing some 
miserable craft, with gaping sides and worm- 
eaten timbers. It costs him not a thought to 
have it broken up and destroyed. But that 
noble ship of Tarshish, just launched from 
the docks, in the pride of conscious inherent 
strength, and filled with precious stores ! it 
could not be, without an effort, that the owner 
(convinced of some irremediable defect), brings 
it back to port, takes it asunder, timber by 
timber, stripping it of its garniture and beauty. 
So it was with St Paul. He saw that the vessel 
of legal and ceremonial righteousness, with all 
its pride of form and bearing, could not weather 



146 st paul's letter to the romans: 

the storm. These frescoed pictures on the 
walls of his heart, are, in the eye of God and of 
His holy law, only daubs of untempered mortar. 
He was led to see, what others might not — that 
on the Great Day, all that once boasted right- 
eousness would be but as "wood and hay and 
stubble." It would avail him nothing as a 
ground of justification : — a poor miserable coun- 
terfeit : " The day of the Lord of Hosts shall 
be upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all 
pleasant pictures!" And he adds, " Yea doubt- 
less, and I count all but loss for the excellency 
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things." * 

In these words, he has undoubtedly reference 
to that wild night in the sea of Adria, when 
pursuing his voyage to Rome in the Alexan- 
drian corn-ship. The tempest was threatening; 
the safety of the ship seemed to demand a 
lightening of the cargo. But that precious corn! 
must it be sacrificed for the safety of the vessel? 
It was " gain;" but must it come to be reckoned 

* Phil. iii. 8. 



ITS GREAT THEME. 1 47 

as " loss/' and tossed overboard ? Yes, the 
tempest decides the question. It must be con- 
signed to the waves, otherwise the vessel will 
founder. There is no room for debate ; the 
crew make up their minds to " suffer the loss of 
all" Nay more, when the tempest howls with 
greater fury, and danger and death stare them 
full in the face, they go a step further. The 
"loss" is never thought of. They do not now 
pause in uncertainty and indecision, saying, 
' Cannot we spare these precious barrels of 
merchandise ? ' Imminent danger makes them 
glad to plunge them into the roaring sea. 
When the question is between the loss of the 
wheat, and the loss of the ship, there can be no 
hesitation. They account them as absolutely 
worthless — of no value. They are glad to see 
them pitching against one another in the dark 
abyss. They look upon them now, not as gain 
or treasure, but as having proved an absolute 
hindrance, endangering their safety. 

And this was the process in St Paul's mind. 
First, there was a clinging to all these birth- 
right gains, and self-righteous confidences. He 



I48 ST PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMANS I 

was loath to part with them. Secondly, he 
underwent the "loss," but it was accompanied 
with " suffering." It was a violent effort to him 
to renounce all which he had once so fondly 
treasured and trusted in. But the third stage 
of feeling was when he was brought to say, ' I 
hate them all : they are as dung : they are worth- 
less : they are imperilling the vessel's safety ; 
they are endangering my soul's interest ; let 
them go every one of them! They were once 
u gain to me ;" once I endured " suffering'' at the 
thought of losing them ; but now, heave them 
all into the raging sea. I have learnt to hate 
them. I count them as refuse, sweepings, 
husks, " that I may win Christ, and be found in 
him.'" 

Is this our case ? Can we, as voyagers on 
the sea of life, make such a protestation, that 
all in which we once trusted and gloried, as a 
ground of justification in the sight of God, — our 
good name, our good doings, our moralities, and 
natural virtues and amiabilities and alms-deeds, 
our acts of kindness and sterling integrity and 
unselfish benevolence, — these we toss overboard, 



ITS GREAT THEME. 1 49 

in order that the giant deed of Christ's doing 
and dying may stand out alone in solitary 
grandeur ? " Not having mine own righteous- 
ness, which is of the law, but that which is 
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness 
w T hich is of God by faith." Oh ! there is no other 
garment for the soul to cover its spiritual naked- 
ness ; — there is no other rest for the soul bur- 
dened with the sense of its shortcomings. 
Xot only is it the dove hidden in the clefts of 
the smitten Rock {that is the image of pardon 
and safety) ; but it is the dove, too, soaring 
aloft to the celestial windows in the borrowed 
plumage of a glorious righteousness ; — its wings 
' ; covered with silver, and its feathers with 
yellow gold." It is a truth which may well 
bring with it peace and joy and elevation of 
heart. " The effect of righteousness is quiet- 
ness and assurance for ever/' " We which 
believe do enter into rest," ' and that/ quaintly 
says an old writer, ' by ceasing from our own 
works, as God, on the seventh day, did irom 
His.' 

If it be a blessed truth to live on, what a 



150 st paul's letter to the romans : 

blessed truth to die on ! What a joyous gar- 
ment this, wherewith to wrap us round when the 
billows are high, and we are plunging into 
Jordan ! We can imagine, when that solemn 
hour arrives ; when, perhaps suddenly, we are 
laid on the pillow from which we are to rise no 
more ; and when, despite of our well-grounded 
confidence in the Gospel, gloomy visions and 
memories of former guilt will gather around, 
filling us with trembling and dismay, — oh ! in 
the midst of the thick darkness, to feel girded 
with a panoply, which the rush of waters cannot 
penetrate, and of which the King of terrors can- 
not despoil us — the robe which we got at the 
cross, and which we are to wear before the 
throne ! 

Yes, children of God, of every age and rank 
and experience, tune your hearts and lips for 
the joyous strain! Aged believers, sing it! 
ye whose earthly, pilgrim-garments are soiled 
and travel-worn, but whose robe of righteous- 
ness is fresh as in the day of your espousals with 
the Heavenly Bridegroom. Young believers, 
sing it ! ye who may have but recently stood at 



ITS GREA T THEME. I 5 I 



the marriage-altar with your Lord, and re- 
ceived at His hands the glistering vesture ; who 
may have a long journey, it may be, still to 
traverse, ere vou reach the Kind's Palace. 
Sorrowing believers, sing it ! take down your 
harps from the willows of sadness. Ye are in 
mourning attire ; but through your weeds there 
shines this bright clothing of wrought gold, 
which the shadows of death and the grave can- 
not dim or alloy. Dying ones, sing it ! if our 
voice could reach you from this place, whether ye 
be old or young, rich or poor ; the aged pilgrim 
of heaven, falling gently, like a shock of corn in 
its season, or the child, whose lips early grace 
has perfected with praise — going to an early 
crown : Oh ! let the whole Church of the living 
God, divided on other themes, — dumb and mute 
with other songs, — join together in glad acclaim, 
kindle into holy rapture with this — 



' ' Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness 
My beauty are, my glorious dress ; 
'Mid flaming worlds, in these array'd, 
With joy I shall lift up my head. 



iS2 s t Paul's letter to the romans, etc. 

" This spotless robe the same appears 
When ruin'd nature sinks in years ; 
No age can change its glorious hue — 
The robe of Christ is ever new. 

" And when the dead shall hear Thy voice. 
And all Thy banish'd ones rejoice, 
Their beauty this, their glorious dress, — 
Jesus the Lord our Righteousness ! " 



SERMON III. 

>i J aid's Jfellotos^xps m 3Jtom* : f imc;%. 



" To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be 
saints: Grace to you, and peace,"from God our Father, 
and the Lord Jesus Christ;" — ROM. i. 7. 

" To Timothy, my dearly beloved son : Grace, 
mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and Christ 
Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve from 
my forefathers with pure conscience, that without 
ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers 
night and day ; greatly desiring to see thee, being 
mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy ; 
when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that 
is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, 
and thy mother Eunice ; and I am persuaded that in 
thee also." — 2 Tim. i. 2-5. 



III. 

{Preached at the Porta del Popolo^ March 5, 1871 .) 

2 Tim. i. 2. 
" Timothy, my dearly beloved son." 

IN prosecuting our theme of St Paul's resi- 
dence at ROME, there can be no subject of 
deeper interest to us than his fellowships with 
Roman Christians. It is evident from the per- 
usal of the closing chapter in his Epistle, that 
before he set foot personally in this city, there 
was already within its walls the nucleus of a 
flourishing Church. In that postscript chapter 
(if I may so call it), there are twenty-six be- 
lievers he individually names, to whom he 
conveys his apostolic salutations, in addition 
to two of their "households/' as well as other 
" brethren " and "saints" (ver. 14, 15). Several 
of these were natives of the capital, who, on 
account of an edict of Claudius, had been ex- 



156 ST PA UL'S FELLO WSHIPS IN POME I 

pelled from their homes on the Tiber, and 
driven as fugitives to cities bordering on the 
Mediterranean. In the places of their exile 
they had become converts to the faith through 
the Apostle's preaching. There were others 
now in Rome, " fervent in spirit, serving the 
Lord/' whom St Paul had not as yet seen in the 
flesh. They were only known to him by their 
steadfast faith, devoted lives, and by their 
" obedience," which, as he expresses it, "had 
come abroad unto all men " (ver. 19). It is in- 
teresting, surely, to know from his own lips, that 
in his manifold journeyings by land and by 
sea, whether in his hours of solitude, or where 
surrounded by busy crowds, ROME and its 
Church had a constant place in his holiest re- 
membrances ; for he specially tells us, that 
"without ceasing he made mention of them 
always in his prayers " (Rom. i. 9). We cannot 
think of him, therefore, coming to this ancient 
metropolis as to a city of strangers, where he 
would be isolated from Christian sympathy. In 
that list of names to which I have just referred, 
there were doubtless not a few of those " bre- 



TIMOTHY. 157 



thren," who, shortly after the Apostle-prisoner 
landed from his long voyage, met him at Appii 
Forum ; and on seeing whom, after weeks of 
loneliness and depression, during which no con- 
genial heart had shared the burden of his spirit, 
he " thanked God and took courage." It is im- 
possible to affirm, whether any reliance can be 
placed on the identity of the two localities which 
I visited this last week, credited by tradition as 
being the dwellings of the Apostle/" Some- 
where, at least, we know (and, at all events, it 
could not probably be far from one or other of 
these), the members of the infant Church in 
Rome met him. In "his own hired house/' 
wherever it was (to take up the tone of cheer- 
fulness which characterises the closing words of 
the Acts), "he received all that came in unto 
him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teach- 
ing those things which concern the Lord Jesus 
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding 
him." 

Among other sacred fellowships, however, 

* See the description of this visit in Introductory Chapter, p. 
29, et seq. 



I58 ST PA Ulls FELLOWSHIPS IN POME : 

there is one which stands out with special and 
pre-eminent distinctiveness. While all who were 
begotten in the Lord were dear to the Apostle, 
TIMOTHY has a peculiar halo of interest en- 
circling him, not more in connection with pre- 
vious years, than with St Paul's Roman resi- 
dence. For no one does he long more fervently 
to come to his house or to his dungeon. When 
the last days — the last hours, had arrived, how 
vehemently does he desire his presence ! In 
his second letter, how touching to read twice 
over, as if to make doubly sure, " Do thy dili- 
gence to come shortly to me." "Do thy dili- 
gence," he repeats, " to come before winter." 
We are not told, but we can, at all events, 
entertain the possibility (the probability), that 
these appeals were not in vain. We love to 
dwell on the likelihood of the last closing- 
moments being soothed by the presence and 
voice most prized by him ; Timothy walking 
by his side on the Ostian Road, supporting 
and cheering the Christian hero in his great 
trial-hour, with those hopes full of immortality, 
which he himself had so oft proclaimed to 



TIMOTHY. I59 



others. Though it may be no more than a 
gratuitous fiction, we felt it, at all events, alike 
pleasing and impressive, two days ago, in the 
magnificent Basilica of the San Paolo, to gaze 
on the juxtaposition of their tombs ; the ashes 
of the great Apostle and of his beloved com- 
panion resting traditionally side by side. " They 
were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in 
their death they were not divided." One could 
not help feeling, that often as the epitaph had 
been used, it was never more fitting and ap- 
propriate than here.* 

In adverting for a little to the history of 
Timothy, let us glance, in their order, at his 
Youth, his Conversion, and his Work, 

s In speaking of the earlier passages of his life, 
we must change for a moment the scene from 
ROME, the hired house, the dungeon, and the 
place of martyrdom, to a distant city in Asia 
Minor. 



See Frontispiece ; also Introduction, p, 90. 



1 60 ST PA UL'S FELLO W SHIPS IN ROME : 

The family group at Lystra, in Lycaonia, is a 
pleasing one. The main place, indeed, in that 
home is vacant. From there being no reference to 
his father, either in St Paul's letters to Timothy 
or in the Acts, we are led to conclude that he 
had died while his boy was yet young. His 
father, we are expressly told, was not of Hebrew 
origin, but a Gentile ; a Greek by birth and by 
religion. We also infer that he was a ' proselyte 
of the gate ; ' one of those who, in common with 
the proselytes of righteousness, had abandoned 
and renounced the errors and debasements of 
idolatry, and embraced the worship of the God 
of Israel. Two other members, however, occupy 
the house, thus probably bereft of its head ; 
the widowed Jewess, the child's mother (by 
name Eunice), along with her own surviving 
parent, whom she had evidently taken to her 
lonely home to be " the nourisher of her old 
age." 

Grace is not hereditary ; but it seems to have 
been so in the case of that mother and daughter 
in Israel, for the Apostle tells us that they had 
that richest of dowries, " unfeigned faith/' What 



TIMOTHY. l6l 



had brought them to their remote dwelling at 
Lystra we are not informed. Doubtless, He, who 
at that same time sent Lydia from her native 
town, Thyatira, to distant Philippi, had purposes 
of similar divine grace and mercy in arranging 
the residence of that Jewish family in this dis- 
tant city of idolaters. God had blessed their 
solitude w T ith one object of tender and hallowed 
interest — "the only son of his mother." The 
youthful Timothy is beautifully pictured to us, 
as imbibing his earliest lessons of heavenly wis- 
dom at the feet of these two devout women. 

As I have just observed, there is but one 
characteristic given of the early school in which 
he was trained. Its lessons were those of " un- 
feigned faith ; " two words, briefly uttered, but 
fraught w T ith vast significance. From them we 
infer, that his instructors made him the recipient 
of their religious belief. He was trained up in 
the creed of their and his ancestry : from a 
child he had been taught to " know the Holy 
Scriptures." Doubtless such faithful guardians 
would act up rigidly to the solemn charge en- 
joined in the olden time : " These words which 



162 st Paul's fellowships in pome : 

I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, 
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou 
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by 
the way, and when thou liest down, and w r hen 
thou risest up." If other families in that pagan 
town shared their belief, they may together (as 
has been pictured), like Lydia and her little band 
of followers, have resorted Sabbath after Sab- 
bath to the " proseuchse " or " oratories " by the 
river-side, and there poured out their hearts in 
supplication for the blessing of Abraham's God ; 
that He would hasten the coming of the Messiah 
promised to the Fathers, in whom first Israel, 
and, through Israel, all the families of the earth 
were to be blessed. If so, doubtless the child of 
their many prayers would accompany them to 
these sacred resorts, and have his mind filled 
with the hopes of his race, — -hopes which had 
already received their most glorious fulfilment in 
the advent of the great " Consolation of Israel." 
But his was more than mere acquaintance 
with a theological creed — instruction in the 
articles of the Hebrew religion. He was 



TIMOTHY. 163 



taught thus early to admire and love, not only 
the faith, but the "faith UNFEIGNED," which 
dwelt in his grandmother Lois and in his mother 
Eunice. " Unfeigned faith!' It was that divine 
thing, a hallowed, consistent example, the utter- 
ances and expressions of a piety that went not 
forth of " feigned lips" It is too possible now, 
as it was then, to give an intellectual assent to a 
round of systematic doctrine, — to be the votaries 
and disciples of a faith that is feigned, — a faith 
which exercises no ameliorating influence on the 
heart, no animating and controlling power on 
the life: a stale, rigid, cold, barren orthodoxy, 
not countersigned by a corresponding walk and 
conversation. Not so, was it, in the case of this 
holy household at Lystra. The injunction of 
the wise man seems there to have been faithfully 
followed and fulfilled. " Train " (a word includ- 
ing alike precept and example), — " Train up a 
child in the way he should go." There was, in 
these two conscientious Jewish matrons, the 
true ring of the religious life ; not the base 
counterfeit coin of earth, but the unmistakable 
currency of heaven. 



1 64 ST PA UL's FELLO WSH1PS IN ROME I 

It was under this hallowed roof, then, that the 
infancy and childhood and youth of Timothy 
were spent. But for Lois and Eunice, his would 
have been an unknown name. The Church of 
Christ may well go to Lystra, and hang gar- 
lands of gratitude around the tomb of these two 
women in Israel. Blessed the child that is under 
such a household ! Blessed still the children 
enjoying a mother's prayers ! Blessed every 
one of us, who have the vision of such and simi- 
lar holy examples, rising up like a green oasis 
amid the waste of memory ! 

Let us now turn to his Call or conversion. 
This latter word is perhaps out of place and 
misapplied when used in regard to Timothy. In 
the history of not a few other characters in holy 
writ, we can point to some memorable crisis, 
when, by the power of God's grace and Spirit, 
a sudden and almost instantaneous change took 
place in their whole moral natures ; when the 
defiant bulwarks of sin and unbelief and rebel- 
lion in a moment fell to the ground, and their 
entire treasures were surrendered to the Lord, 



TIMOTHY. 165 



Such, I need not say, was St Paul himself; when, 
almost in the twinkling of an eye, the vulture 
nature was transmuted into that of the dove, 
that of the lion into the lamb ; — when the perse- 
cutor, " breathing out threatenings and slaugh- 
ter," became the child-like follower of Jesus. 
And many are there still, who can point to 
similar experiences. l There, and then, God met 
me in the way. There was the Jabbok where 
His angel wrestled with me, and where, in His 
might I prevailed, and got my new name. There 
a light, like that on the Damascus highway, 
brought me to the dust an enemy, a blasphemer, 
and raised me up a meek disciple. There, in an 
agony of despair, like the dying felon, I looked 
on the crucified One, and the gates of mercy 
were opened to receive me/ 

But this is not God's general way of pro- 
cedure. As in nature, there is a process of 
gradual development towards maturity, " first 
the blade, then the ear, after that, the full corn 
in the ear ;" as in the animal economy, there is 
the same gradual progress from infancy and 
youth to manhood and age ; so is it in the 



1 66 ST PA UL'S FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME J 

spiritual life ; and so was it in the case of Tim- 
othy. He could revert to no such momentous 
turning-point in his history, when his whole 
being underwent a sudden transformation. His 
piety had distilled like the dew of heaven, known 
only by being seen. As we are told that the 
Jewish temple of old was reared without " ham- 
mer, or axe, or tool of iron " being heard ; so 
had the young altar of his faith risen in silence. 
The soil of his heart had been prepared by godly 
parental training ; the seed sown had been 
gradually fostered and matured by holy hands. 
At the same time, while he thus grew up the 
child of prayer and of unfeigned faith, an occur- 
rence took place in the city of his dwelling which 
gave a new impulse to his spiritual life, and 
altered his whole future destinies. That noble 
Missionary of heroic faith, with whom he was 
subsequently to be tenderly associated in this 
capital, was passing through Lystra, proclaim- 
ing the glorious truths of the Gospel. The de- 
based mob, instigated by some opposing Jews 
who had come from Antioch and Iconium on 
the evil errand of thwarting his mission, assaulted 



TIMOTHY. 167 



St Paul in the open streets with stones, and 
dragging him outside the city walls, left him 
there mangled and bleeding. He had ap- 
parently anticipated, in thought, his Roman 
martyrdom, and already joined the M noble 
army" of these early ages. That life of price- 
less value was, however, mercifully spared ; the 
furious and cruel attempt only recoiled on the 
heads of the instigators. It was not without 
its momentous results. We have every reason 
to believe that one of the spectators of that 
outrage was the son of this pious Hebrew 
home. Accustomed there to the a unfeigned 
faith " as manifested in the passive virtues of 
love, and meekness, and submission, — he saw 
that same " unfeigned faith " manifested in its 
active form and type of heroic endurance — 
superiority to physical suffering. The youth's 
impressible mind, at that impressible period of 
life, must have been arrested, by (what never 
fails to arrest and impress) — the conduct of a 
man in earnest; — one ready to risk his all, and 
dear life itself, for the sake of the truth. St 
Paul was bearing about in his cut and lacerated 



l68 ST PA UL'S FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME ." 

frame " the dying of the Lord Jesus." and in 
conjunction with this, " the life also of Jesus 5 ' 
(in his meek, calm, and prayerful bearing 
towards his murderers) was made manifest in 
his mortal body. In one of its innumerable 
subsequent instances, the blood of the martyr 
became the seed of the Church. Next day, he 
and Barnabas departed from Lystra to Derbe. 
But they had left ineffaceable footprints behind 
them. The scene I have just described had 
stirred the impulses of that young soul. From 
that hour he claimed a new home, a new father, 
a new name : " Timothy, my own son in the 
faith." St Paul returned from his toilsome 
missionary circuit after an absence of one or 
two years, to the old scene of his insult and 
imminent danger. He found a living stone, 
which had been polishing during his absence, 
ready now to take its place in the Spiritual 
Temple ; and he could write, as he did on 
another occasion, in his eventful diary, "The 
things which happened unto me, have fallen 
out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." 
The seed sown by pious parents, watered by 



TIMOTHY. 169 



his own blood and tears, was now, in ripe fruit, 
gathered by the sickle ; this, in its turn, would 
yield fresh seed to be scattered elsewhere, and 
give birth to vaster harvests. 

God still takes various means of quicken- 
ing life in His own children, — those who, like 
Timothy, may have been piously trained, their 
affections early won to His service. A start- 
ling providence — a family bereavement — a time 
of critical illness — a rousing sermon ; these, 
and such like instrumental agencies, He em- 
ploys, to give them more living, realising views 
of the truth, and to stimulate and foster the 
energies of their spiritual being. They may 
before have been slumbering, like Elijah, under 
their juniper-tree ; but some Angel has roused 
them with his quickening touch, and by the 
bestowal of fresh pledges of divine love and 
blessing, they go fearlessly on their wilderness 
way, with an heroic faith to w T hich they were 
before strangers. Or, like Timothy, they 
may have received some new and noble im- 
pulses from the holy example of others. I 
believe many of us can similarly revert, in the 



I / O ST PA ULS FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME I 

annals of the past, to some aged friend, or 
neighbour, or relative, who has perhaps now 
gone the way of all the earth, but whose 
beautiful life (the embodiment of all the Chris- 
tian virtues), has to us invested religion with 
a charm that has never, and can never be for- 
gotten. Mere sermons are transient in their 
impressions, — they may die away with the 
voice of the speaker. But those life-sermons 
are imperishable. Timothy might forget some 
passages and sentences in the two Epistles 
written to him by St Paul ; but he would never 
forget that better Epistle, not written with ink ; 
nothing could obliterate its deathless pages. 
He would never forget that scene of half-com- 
pleted martyrdom, outside the walls of Lystra ; 
or that other, in long after years (I have already 
spoken of, as probably witnessed also outside 
the gates of Rome), when the same devoted 
champion lay silent under the flash of the 
sword, which added the greatest to the great 
cloud of witnesses. Oh for faith and grace, 
not by word, but by deed, to bear witness to 
the power and reality of the truth : so that 



TIMOTHY. I J I 



men may take knowledge of us that we have 
been with Jesus ; and when our race is run on 
earth, though dead we may yet speak ! 

I pass now briefly to Timothy's work and 
Apostleship. 

St Paul allowed seven years to elapse before 
his next return to Lystra. By this time Timothy 
had outgrown boyhood and youth. He was 
now ready, as a good soldier, for his armour ; 
prepared to be girded with the panoply of 
which his spiritual father speaks, when he en- 
joins him to "war a good warfare." He was 
not unaware of the perils of such w r ork — the 
penalties of such a service. For his faithful In- 
structor had, some years previously, specially 
reminded him, in common with all the other dis- 
ciples of these Asiatic cities, that " through 
much tribulation they must enter into the 
kingdom of God." But he, as well as the two 
godly hearts which doated upon him, had 
counted the cost, and willingly made the 
sacrifice. They mutually { remembered the 
word of the Lord Jesus, how He said, u If 



172 ST PA ULS FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME : 

any man will come after me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
me : " — " Whosoever loveth father or mother 
more than me, is not worthy of me." Both 
filial and maternal love surrendered to these 
mightier claims ; knowing that whatever for- 
feiture might be involved in " the present 
life," in the " world to come," the severed family 
links would be again renewed in " life ever- 
lasting" It is from this time forward that he 
becomes St Paul's most duteous attendant, and 
most beloved friend. Lystra, a town of heathen 
Lycaonia, has the honour of giving a faithful 
Evangelist to the early Church. As God called 
Elijah, not from amid the consecrated tribes or 
cities of Israel, but among the half-Gentile fast- 
nesses of rugged Gilead ; so He now finds one 
of the pillars of His cause, and the main com- 
panion of His greatest Apostle, not in Jerusalem 
or Samaria, — not in Csesarea or even Antioch, 
— but in this distant Pagan city. St Paul at 
once cleaves to him with parental love. The 
soul of the elder Apostle is knit (like that of 
David to Jonathan) : — " Him would Paul have 



TIMOTHY. 173 



to go forth with him ;; (Acts xvi. 3). It is even 
an illustration of what one sometimes sees, a 
sympathetic tie binding together those who 
are naturally of diverse and opposite char- 
acters. The fiery Elijah was different from 
the calm, tranquil Elisha ; yet how affec- 
tionate and strong was their union ! How 
vehement was Peter's attachment to John, as 
evidenced by their ever-recurring companion- 
ship ; and yet how different their tempera- 
ments ! In the one, the prevailing element 
was contemplation, gentleness, and love ; in 
the other, heroic and often unregulated im- 
pulse and passionate zeal. We see the same 
here. St Paul had, indeed, a beauteously 
balanced mind, a fine combination of all spiri- 
tual virtues ; but the predominating ones were 
doubtless the masculine — bold, vehement, dar- 
ing, uncompromising — only once in tears, and 
that not for himself, or evoked by his own 
sufferings. Timothy again, as we may gather 
from St Paul's exhortations to him in the 
Epistles, inherited more, as it has\£reen called, 
" the feminine " type of character — wanting in 



1 74 ST PA ULS FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME : 

some of the sterner attributes needed for an 
Apostolic age (i Cor. xvi. 10) ; gentle, pliable, 
sensitive ; dissolved in a woman's tenderness 
when bidding his spiritual Father farewell 
(2 Tim. i. 4). Even in physical make and 
constitution he was a contrast to the hardy, 
wiry man, who could buffet wintry seas and 
brave summer suns — pass undeterred through 
countries infested by bandits, and at last 
endure a winter's dungeon without a cloak to 
protect him from the cold. Timothy had to 
be warned against incurring the risk of needless 
privations. There is a touch of tender interest 
in the advice of his kind protector (so careless 
about his own comforts), to take at times " a little 
wine," to strengthen his unrobust and fragile 
frame (1 Tim. v. 23). In their after years, too, 
how great the discrepancy ; although in this re- 
spect, also, we are not without scriptural ante- 
cedents of age clinging lovingly to youth, 
winter clasping early spring or midsummer in 
its bosom. It is a New Testament repetition of 
that beautiful picture of the old economy; — 
aged Eli, the Priest of the Tabernacle, clinging 



TIMOTHY. I75 



with a brother's fondness and confidingness to 
the little child who served before the Lord. 
Barnabas was St Paul's fellow-labourer ; and, 
despite of one unhappy occasion of temporary 
estrangement, they were no ordinary ties of 
affection which linked together these two noble 
standard-bearers in the army of the faithful ; 
but hear, in the Great Apostle's own words, 
how tenderer far is his relation to Timothy. 
Almost with a father's pride over a much 
loved son, he says, " Ye know the proof of him, 
that as a son with the father he hath served 
with me in the Gospel." That filial service, 
too, embraced little, trivial things; — things 
even referring to his own personal comfort, 
which he might have had scruple in devolving 
upon others, but which he felt it was using no 
liberty to put upon Timothy. Take, for ex- 
ample, that notable glimpse of this easy fami- 
liarity and intimacy given us at the close of 
the Epistle, and to which I have already inci- 
dentally alluded, when he tells him to open 
the box at Troas which held his papers and 
parchments (probably his private memoranda 



Ij6 ST PA UL*S FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME I 

and journals, including, it may be, the diploma 
of Roman citizenship), and bring them along 
with him to his dungeon ; or to fetch the winter 
cloak (the Roman Poenula), which had formerly 
been his companion amid the cutting winds of 
the Pisidian Mountains, or amid the storms of 
the Mediterranean. Imagining it would no 
longer be required, he had inadvertently left 
it behind him at Troas ; but he felt his aged 
frame needed it now, more than ever, to protect 
from the pestilential damps of a prison home. 
" Son Timothy," " My beloved Son," " My 
own Son in the faith," " My work-fellow," 
" My brother," are the expressions which be- 
speak the depth of his affection. Hear how 
he writes of him when he is looking back on 
the manifold friendships of a whole life : a I 
have no man like minded." From city to city — 
and (when separated) from day to day, and 
from hour to hour — the glory of manhood and 
the beauty of youth thus went hand in hand. 
See how these two Christians loved one an- 
other ! 

But notwithstanding this disparity in age, 



TIMOTHY. 177 



and even in some respects the lack of mental 
idiosyncrasy, — work, holy work in the Church of 
their Great Lord, bound them together. On 
that multiform and diverse work, we cannot now 
enter. Timothy seems to have shared, not only 
the hardships, and dangers, and opposition 
encountered by his illustrious compeer, but to 
have participated also in his triumphs. What 
part he had in the conversions of this Roman 
capital, we are not informed ; but it is worthy of 
note, that in St Paul's second Epistle to him, 
noble members of the Church send, at the 
close, their special salutations ; and among 
these, Pudens and Claudia, — the latter name 
one of special interest to us, as being that of 
the daughter of a British king ; the only name 
belonging to our country which occurs in sacred 
history, but the first of the many women of 
Britain who have since sustained the faith, and 
helped on the work of God's faithful ministers.* 



* See Introductory Chapter, p. 55. It has been well observed 
that, independent of the tie of affection and friendship, it would 
seem as if some peculiar official connection subsisted between 
St Paul and Timothy, linking them together as colleagues and 

M 



178 ST PA UL,'s FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME ." 

The special centre, however, of Timothy's 
labours was, not Rome but Ephesus ; at that 
time the greatest city of Asia Minor, and 
which almost divided with this imperial metro- 
polis a world-wide renown. Here, this young 
and faithful Evangelist was left to contend, 
almost single-handed, with the many adverse 
and baneful influences which surrounded him. 
His undertaking ministerial duty there, was 
in itself a beautiful evidence and attestation 
of his unselfish willingness, in all things, and at 
all times, to acquiesce in the proposals of his 
spiritual guide. " I besought thee," says St Paul, 

copartners in the Church of that age : " Timotheus, my work- 
fellow" (Rom. xvi. 21). Not to speak of the previous Epistles 
to the Thessalonians, we find the two names occurring, in this 
conjoint form, in the three letters sent from Rome by St Paul to 
Philippi, Colosse, and to Philemon. In the first, the initiatory 
address is " Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ." 
In the other two, the mention of the name of the elder Apostle 
is followed by " and Timothy our brother." It has been further 
remarked, by the same discriminating writer, when in one of 
these letters (that to the Colossians) the name of Luke occurs, 
who was the most constant companion of St Paul (more fre- 
quently with him than even Timothy was), it is not thus con- 
joined with his in the prefix, but simply occurs towards the end, 
as sending a message of love to the brethren. — See Dr Howsorfs 
" Companions of St Paul" p. 284. 



TIMOTHY. 179 



" to abide at Ephesus." That expression of the 
great Apostle's wishes was enough; he accepted, 
without remonstrance or hesitation, the respon- 
sibilities of the arduous post. His now aged 
father in the faith seemed, however, keenly alive 
to the perils of his new position, and his inade- 
quacy in his own strength and from a constitu- 
tional timidity, to combat them. These were 
partly without, and partly within, the Ephesian 
Church. Outside, there was the intellectual 
pride and cunning sophistries of its pagan philo- 
sophers, — " the opposition of science falsely so 
called." There was the religious intolerance 
and mercenary spirit of the vast multitude of 
priests and votaries and craftsmen connected 
with the temple of Diana. There were the 
subtle arts of the practised magicians and sor- 
cerers. There was the still fiercer bigotry and 
hate of the Jews, who had numerously settled in 
this vast emporium of Eastern commerce, and 
found it a lucrative field for amassing their sor- 
did gains. Then, within the Church, there was 
the danger, with some, of being contaminated 
with surrounding worldliness — the prevailing 



1 80 ST PA ul's fello WSHIPS IN ROME ; 

flippancy and voluptuousness of social and 
fashionable life ; with others, there was the risk 
of giving way to doctrinal defection ; with others, 
of being involved in miserable party factions, or 
in those controversial disputes which stirred up 
that "wrath of man which worketh not the 
righteousness of God." " O Timothy, keep that 
which is committed to thy trust." " Hold fast 
the form of sound words which thou hast heard 
of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." 
" For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but 
of power and love, and of a sound mind." 

Whether Timothy was able fully to profit by 
the warnings and teachings of his faithful moni- 
tor, — to resist this flood of evil, and to prove an 
example " in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
spirit, in faith, in purity/' — we cannot tell. We 
have little to guide us in forming an estimate of 
his later life and labours. Let us, at all events, 
cherish the hope, that these were in harmony 
with his antecedent history and character ; that 
he lived not unworthy of his godly parentage ; 
of the prayers which had hovered over his infant 
couch, and which had followed him from the 



TIMOTHY. l8l 



city of his early habitation ; of the blissful and 
hallowed companionship which had moulded 
him in after years, and which had given, in his 
case, an emphasis to the Psalmist's words, which 
perhaps they never had before or since : "I am a 
companion of them that fear Thee." There 
is strong reason to surmise, that at some time or 
other, although the period is indeterminate, he 
had been called to submit to a similar cross with 
his aged father and friend, by wearing the chains 
of captivity. This we infer from St Paul's inci- 
dental reference at the close of his Epistle to 
the Hebrews, " Know ye that our brother 
Timothy is set at liberty" Indeed, some 
imagine, the reference is to a share of the great 
Apostle's first imprisonment at Rome, and that 
it was before the same terrible tribunal he him- 
self was soon to be sisted, that he charged ' his 
son' to witness a good confession, even as their 
adorable Master, in the presence of Pilate, had 
done before them, (i Tim. vi. 12, 13.) 

We need not attempt to trace farther,Timothy's 
work and career. And as to his latter end, we 
can only accept, for what it is worth, the testi- 



1 82 ST PA UL's FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME : 

mony of tradition, that on the occasion of a 
great festival to Diana, in which he endeavoured 
to raise his protesting voice, he was made a 
victim to the fury of the fanatic mob, who 
dispatched him with clubs, close to the gigantic 
temple of the goddess, and that his body was 
brought subsequently to Rome. 

We love better to think of him (as already 
described, in relation to the subject we are now 
pursuing), as the Apostle's latest, fastest, dearest 
friend. Previous to St Paul's imprisonment, they 
seem to have taken a mutual parting, under an 
impression that they would never meet again. 
The faithful son of such an affectionate father 
had wept bitterly at the thought of seeing his 
face no more — " I thank God, whom I serve from 
my forefathers with pure conscience, that with- 
out ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my 
prayers night and day ; greatly desiring to see 
thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be 
filled with joy" (2 Tim. i. 3, 4). But God had 
still spared him. They may yet meet again. 
The spirit of the old man, like another Jacob, 
revives, with the hope, that he who had so " fully 



TIMOTHY. 183 



known his afflictions" in the past (2 Tim. iii. 10), 
who had been so thoroughly cognisant of fifteen 
long years of varying tribulation, would be with 
him when entering the shadows of the dark 
valley. Timothy was far distant in Asia ; but 
St Paul, as we have seen, earnestly urges him to 
come with all speed. Yet, owing to the many 
dangers around, fearing lest even he might 
be deterred from giving his dying sympathy, 
he exhorts him to boldness in the cause ot 
Jesus in this most beautiful letter— the second 
Epistle. Time forbids us to pause and analyse 
its touching contents. It bears in its postscript, 
" Written from Rome, when Paul was brought 
before Nero the second time." We may well 
regard it as the farewell souvenir of a loving 
friendship ; quite what we would have expected 
from the pen of one, conscious that he might 
probably be writing his last words. It reminds 
us of the ray which often bursts out before a 
troubled sunset, shooting athwart the whole 
landscape. The Apostle's memory, like that 
parting gleam, retraverses the long years of a 
cherished attachment, and lives them in thought 



1 84 ST PA Ulls FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME : 

over again. He begins with the scenes of child- 
hood at Lystra ; a parent's hallowed home ; their 
mutual prayers, and faith, and tears ; Timothy's 
public consecration to the ministry; his un- 
faltering adherence to himself; the persecutions 
he endured ; following up, with solemn, searching 
counsels, such as a faithful and beloved dying 
friend alone would use ; — one who felt that the 
moments were fleeting, — that he had but few 
words to say, and a brief time to utter them. 
" What mother," says the sainted Monod, " ever 
wrote to her son a letter more full of solicitude ?" 
The sentence at the close, " Grace be with yoti, 
Amen" was probably the last his trembling 
hand traced. 

We can well imagine how these dying ex- 
hortations and benedictions would be treasured 
in hallowed and enduring remembrance. What 
could be a nobler stimulus to this young soldier 
of the cross, to fight manfully the battles of 
truth, than the closing unflinching testimony — 
the triumphant dying experience, of him whom 
he regarded with such reverence and love ? 
Would it not brace and support him for a 



TIMOTHY, I85 



similar hour ? That dauntless apostle could tell, 
how when "all men forsook him/' "notwithstand- 
ing, the Lord stood with him and strengthened 
him." He could leave, as his dying watchword, 
a sacred bequest to all similarly called to wit- 
ness by suffering for the truth : "And the Lord 
shall deliver me from every evil work, and will 
preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom." And 
yet, observe, even when he speaks to Timothy 
of his readiness for departure, and of the crown 
of life promised to the faithful unto death, he 
casts every gem of that crown at the feet of 
Him who is " THE LORD HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS." 
The theme of his life lingers on his lips 
when about to soar amid ministering sera- 
phim. What heroic confidence, yet what child- 
like humility, are in these words, penned amid 
the gloom of his Roman dungeon! — " I am 
now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand : I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept 
the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of RIGHTEOUSNESS, which the Lord, 
the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." 



1 86 ST PA UL'S FELLO WSHIPS IN ROME : 

I repeat, could Timothy forget these words 
when the moment of his own departure came ? 
Would they not be like an angel whispering to 
him ? Would they not prove like a rod and 
staff amid the swellings of Jordan ? 

Be this as it may/ we can at all events think 
of the younger Apostle, now seated by his 
spiritual Father, among the honoured fcand of 
those who have "turned many to righteous- 
ness : " the companionship, intermitted for a 
few stormy years on earth, resumed, never to be 
broken, in the general assembly and Church 
of the first-born in Heaven ! 

May we too, in a humbler sense, share in this 
blissful and honoured association. There can 
indeed be no possible identity of experience 
between us and these two sainted men. The 
times of suffering and martyrdom are, thank 
God, for the present over ; the dungeons of 
bigotry are for the present closed ; the sword of 
persecution slumbers in its scabbard. But let 
us seek to imitate them in the lowlier virtues 
of the everyday Christian character; let us 
follow them in their faith and love, and in the 



TIMOTHY. 1 8 



ceaseless activities of a consecrated life ; that 
thus, when we too come to sleep the last sleep, — 
not amid the glow of lamps which superstition 
burns around emblazoned altars, — but wherever 
our ashes repose (be it amid the quiet seclusion 
of the old village churchvard at home, where 
memory keeps ever sacred vigil over the loved 
and lost), it may be ours, though with infinitely 
lowlier claims, to covet, as the noblest of 
epitaphs — that which now in golden letters 
gleams over the double shrine with which all 
here are familiar — " To ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST, 
AND TO DIE IS GAIN." 



SERMON IV. 



f%e Dible in SJtonw, £t Haul's |£aman 

^stiinong to its inspiration. W$t 

Moxa of Goo not 'gonna. 



"And that from a child thou hast known THE HOLY 
Scriptures, which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which 
is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
in righteousness : that the man of God may be 
perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.' 5 — 
2 Tim. hi. 15-17. 

" But the Word of God is not bound." — 2 Tim. ii. 9. 

" And when they had appointed him a day, there came 
many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded 
and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them 
concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and 
out of the prophets, from morning till evening." — 
Acts xxviii. 23. 



IV. 

{Preached at the Porta del Poftolo, March 12, 1871.)* 

2 Tim. iii. 15, 16. 

" The Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise 
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 

T AST Lord's Day, I directed your thoughts 
-■ — ' to that sacred relation in which St Paul 
stood to Timothy, and the hallowed memories, 
alike scriptural and traditional, in regard to 
both, which hover over this city. 

There is much in the great Apostle's letters 
to his son in the faith, and especially in the 
later one, penned in his Roman dungeon, of 

* It was a remarkable coincidence, that the very time I was 
engaged in preaching this sermon in Rome, several thousands of 
the new National Guard of King Victor Emanuel were being 
sworn in ; and the oath of allegiance was taken, not (as had been 
the immemorial custom), with the hand laid on the crucifix, but 
on the Holy Bible. Two copies of the Scriptures were placed 
open on a table ; the Jews took their oath on the Old Testament, 
the Christians on the Old and New together. 



190 THE BIBLE IN ROME : ST PAUL S 

momentous practical import. There would 
seem to be a special appropriateness, at this 
time and in this place, in selecting for considera- 
tion, among its other themes, St Paul's testimony 
to the divine obligation of the Holy Scriptures. 
We have surely arrived at a wonderful juncture 
and crisis of Rome's history, when, after centu- 
ries of proscription, that blessed Book is once 
more free to enter within its gates— when God's 
ambassadors can unlock its long-sealed foun- 
tains, and without let or hindrance can proclaim, 
" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters ! " On receiving the crowd of inquirers 
in " his own hired house," it was from these 
Sacred Scriptures, during the livelong day, the 
Apostle enforced the claims of his great mission ; 
for. we read, " there came many to him into his 
lodging, to whom he expounded and testified 
the kingdom of God ; persuading them concern- 
ing Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out 
of the prophets, from morning till evening" (Acts 
xxviii. 23). It was these Sacred Scriptures, as 
God's own honoured instrumentality in the 
world's conversion, which gave comfort to the 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. I9I 

chained prisoner himself, as he looked to his 
bonds, and thought for a moment with sadness 
of the arrest thus put upon his labours : " I 
suffer trouble as an evil-doer, even unto bonds ; 
but the Word of God is not bound." He could 
then verify words he had inserted in his letter 
to the Church in Rome, long before he had 
personally set foot within the city, " Whatsoever 
things were written aforetime were written for 
our learning, that we through patience and 
comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" 
(Rom. xv. 4). It was with these Sacred 
Scriptures, as with the Sword of the Spirit, 
Timothy was to fight the battles of the faith as 
his great spiritual father had before him — " I 
charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the 
dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach 
the Wordr When he exhorted him to be a 
workman, needing not to be ashamed, it was by 
"rightly dividing the Word of truth;'' and through 
these Sacred Scriptures, as the man of God, he 
was to be " perfect, thoroughly furnished." 
There are few themes, moreover, which, at the 



192 THE BIBLE IN ROME : ST PAULAS 

present period, demand more earnest and faith- 
ful handling. We cannot close our eyes to the 
fact, that, in varied ways and under specious 
pretexts, not a few are tempted, in these times 
of rampant and reckless speculation, to tamper 
with the authority of God's Word, and are there- 
by digging a mine underneath their feet. By a 
surrender of their old child-like belief in its in- 
spired utterances, they are making " shipwreck 
of faith/' That of " a good conscience " may 
speedily follow. For alas ! there is too often a 
fatal connection — that of cause and effect — be- 
tween the infidelity of the head and the infidelity 
of the heart. Considering, as British Protestants, 
that the Bible is the most precious of inheritances, 
it may not be unsuitable that I refresh your 
memories, not with any new truths, but with a 
few old and familiar thoughts on the Inspiration 
of the Holy Scriptures ; — the obligation laid on 
us to search them, and to value them as the 
very Oracles of God. They have made every 
Christian, and every Christian nation, what they 
are. May the Holy Spirit vouchsafe us His 
presence and blessing. 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 1 93 



The words I have read as a text, embrace 
manifold topics. Let us limit ourselves to three. 

I. The statement regarding the inspiration of 
the sacred Volume, "All Scripture is given by 
inspiration of God!' 

II. The design of the Holy Scriptures, "which 
are able to make wise unto salvation? 

III. The medium by which this is effected, 
" Through faith which is in Christ Jesus" 

I. What do we mean by Inspiration ? In- 
spiration is literally " a breathing into." There 
was a divine, God-breathing;* a supernatural 
influence brought to bear on the souls of the 
writers. So that what was dictated to them, 
and written by them, was the very mind of 
Deity. St Peter says, "The prophecy came 
not in old time by the will of man, but holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." It was not they who spake, but 
the Spirit speaking in them and by them. 

And here the words of St Paul written from 



deoirvevGTOsy 

N 



194 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL' *S 



Rome to Timothy, lead me specially to observe 
(as meeting one more recent and prevalent 
phase of modern infidelity), that the Old and 
New Testament are of equally binding obliga- 
tion. There are those who assent to the inspira- 
tion and authority of the latter, who would reject 
and repudiate that of the former, — those very 
Scriptures to which the Apostle in the text 
alone could refer ; — for, I need not say, it must 
have been with the writings of Moses and the 
Prophets, and the Psalms, that Timothy's grand- 
mother Lois and his mother Eunice stored his 
young and susceptible mind in the early home at 
Lystra. Observe, St Paul here makes the re- 
markable statement, that these ancient oracles 
(independent of the augmentation they were to 
receive from his own inspired utterances, and, 
above all, from the four Gospels, containing the 
words and sayings of the Great Master) were 
" able to make wise unto salvation." These 
Old Testament Scriptures, you do not require to 
be told, are constantly alluded to in the course 
of the New, not only by the Evangelists them- 
selves and the other sacred penmen, but, what 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 195 

is more to us, they are also frequently, in the 
form of quotations, cited by the lips of the Lord 
of evangelists. In the mysterious years of that 
divine youth and boyhood — in the quiet nurture 
and training of His Nazareth home, or amid the 
deep seclusion of its surrounding green hills 
and valleys, He seems to have garnered His 
divine-human memory with these holy trea- 
sures, many portions of which were in due time 
to receive a new and higher consecration, if this 
were possible, by being among the u gracious 
words which proceeded out of His mouth." 
Again and again does He make reference to the 
entire canon of the Old Testament as " the 
Word of God : " moreover, investing it, as the 
arbiter in all questions, with peerless authority. 
He honours it; fulfils it ; yields to it unquestion- 
ing submission ; sets upon its inspired utterances 
His imprimatur and seal. Even in one of His 
parables, though He puts the saying in the lips 
of father Abraham, yet in reality it is His own, 
— " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead." When He confronts the father 



I96 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL 9 S 

of lies in the hour of the desert temptation, 
what were His weapons ? They were taken 
from the same armoury. Thrice He spurns 
back the tempter, by an appeal to the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures, "It is written? To the 
money-changers, carrying on their flagitious 
traffic in the temple-courts, He delivers the 
withering rebuke, "It is written, My house shall 
be called an house of prayer, but ye have made 
it a den of thieves." When, in the lowly Gali- 
lean village of which we have just spoken, He 
commenced His ministry, what were the open- 
ing words He selected as His text ? As if He 
wished, in this interesting hour of His great 
mission, to stamp His own signature on Old 
Testament scripture, He takes into His hand 
the holy writings, and reads from the prophet 
Isaiah, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
glad tidings to the meek : " and when the eyes 
of all in the synagogue were fastened on Him, 
He says, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in 
your ears/' Step by step in His mysterious 
pilgrimage of love, in instances too numerous 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 1 97 

to dwell upon, He seems consumed with zeal to 
fulfil the sayings of Holy Writ ; for it is always 
added, He did such and such things, u that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken." With 
the Scripture, He braced Himself for His cross 
and passion : " He took the twelve aside, and 
said, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, that all 
things which are written may be accomplished." 
Old Testament quotations were among His last 
expiring utterances. Perhaps more remark- 
able still, when the risen Conqueror met His 
disciples at Gennesaret, and they partook of 
their simple feast on its strand, it is the fulfil- 
ment of the Hebrew Scriptures which seems 
uppermost in his heart : " These are the w T ords 
which I spake unto you while I was yet with 
you, that all things must be fulfilled which were 
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, 
and in the Psalms concerning me. Then 
opened He their understandings that they might 
understand the Scriptures? Daring intellectual 
pride, captious questionings, may well be re- 
buked, when we mark the estimate thus put 
upon these sacred oracles by Him who was 



I98 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAULAS 

Truth incarnate. He never regarded them as 
the fabulous legends of an early age, a worn-out 
Book, which the world and the Church in wiser 
times can lay aside. He never considered 
some portions as inspired and some not — like 
the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, partly of iron 
and partly of clay. No ! it is an entire Volume. 
He interjects in one of His discourses the re- 
markable assertion, " The Scripture cannot be 
broken/' Every link of this golden chain was 
sacred and necessary for the strength and cohe- 
sion of the rest. No stone of the divine edifice 
can be wanting. Like His own garment, these 
divine words are one, — " woven without seam 
throughout from the top to the bottom." Well, 
surely, may we love the Book He loved, read 
the Book He read, trust the Book He trusted, 
honour the Book He honoured ; which com- 
forted Him in His sorrows, and supported Him 
in His strong temptations, and with whose utter- 
ances on His tongue He breathed away His 
spirit. He taught its truths, He sang its 
hymns, He prayed its prayers, He drank its 
solaces. It is a souvenir of the Great Master. 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 1 99 

It wears on its every page His image and super- 
scription. The footsteps of the Lord of glory 
are there, and no tidal wave of irreverent 
modern criticism and infidelity can sweep them 
away. 

Another question suggests itself. It is here 
said, "-4// Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God." What is the extent of that "all? " 

In answering that question, we must carefully 
guard ourselves from any misapprehension, by 
the employment of phrases having an am- 
biguous meaning. But we shall not be mis- 
understood when we affirm, that, in the generally 
accepted use of the term, the theory of minute 
" verbal inspiration " seems now, with common 
consent, to be abandoned. In other words, the 
sacred writers seem to have been left to clothe 
the divine communications in their own garb. 
Isaiah has his own elevated dramatic imagery, 
Jeremiah his plaintiveness, Ezekiel his reitera- 
tions, Nahum and Habakkuk their vehement 
rushing numbers : while in the New Testament, 
John and Luke, Paul and James and Peter, all 
similarly retain their peculiar style, phraseology, 






200 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL S 

and idiomatic expressions. They were not tied 
down to mere words. They were not mere pas- 
sive machines in the hands of the Great In- 
spires Hence, too, we see that the narratives 
of the Gospels, though giving substantially the 
same facts, clothe these in different language, 
and describe them from different stand-points. 
The writers were each and all divinely inspired, 
and yet they were human agents. The inspira- 
tion did not cancel their humanity, neither did 
their humanity eclipse the divinity of their 
record. In stating this, there is a beautiful 
analogy often employed between the written 
Word (the Scripture) and Him who is called 
the Word of God, the Man, Christ Jesus. 
In His case (to use the theological phrase), 
we have the hypostatical union of the two 
natures in the one Person. He was Divine, yet 
human. The real humanity did not detract 
from the reality of His Godhead, yet neither 
did the Godhead and supreme Divinity diminish 
the actuality of His manhood. He was the 
great Jehovah, the Creator of all worlds ; yet 
He was true Man, in all His feelings and 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 201 

sympathies and innocent infirmities, though in 
these absolutely faultless. So with the written 
Word. It is divine ; it is the declaration of 
God's own sacred, unchanging mind to His 
Church. But it finds its way through human 
instrumentality. The voice is from heaven ; 
the river, clear as crystal, is from before the 
throne ; but the channel through which it 
flows, with its windings and scenery, is all 
human. The golden oil of the candlestick is 
distilled from above, from the two everlasting 
Olive-trees ; but the pipes which convey it to feed 
the lamps are human, and may vary in shape, 
and size, and lustre (Zech. iv. 2, 3). Hence 
there may be diversities of gifts and tempera- 
ments in the writers ; the verbal narratives of 
the Evangelists may vary ; there may be appa- 
rent discrepancies in these tints in the divine 
picture ; but the mind of God is faithfully con- 
veyed notwithstanding. Each inspired historian 
can say with David, " My tongue is the pen of 
a ready writer," — that ready Writer being the 
Spirit of God. " Holy men of God spake," but 
yet (to repeat the assertion of St Peter, already 



202 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL'S 



quoted) they " spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." We have "not the words which 
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 
Ghost teacheth." * That Bible would be incom- 
prehensible on the theory of mere human 
authorship. Many of its writers, the composi- 
tors of this great repertory of divine life and 
love and consolation, were illiterate, uneducated 
men, — strangers to all the learning and culture 
of the schools. They were separated from one 
another by hundreds, indeed thousands of years. 
And yet what a unity in their books ! Peasants, 
Herdsmen, Pilgrims, Fishermen, Shepherds, 
Vine-dressers, Physicians, Lawgivers, Philoso- 

* This is well put in the words of an excellent writer and 
theologian : " As a skilful musician, called to execute alone some 
masterpiece, puts his lips by turns to the mournful flute, the 
shepherd's reed, the mirthful pipe, and the war trumpet ; so the 
Almighty God, to sound in our ears His eternal Word, has selected 
from of old, the instruments best suited to receive successively the 
breath of His Spirit. Thus we have in God's great Anthem of 
Revelation, the sublime simplicity of John, the elliptical, soul- 
stirring energy of St Paul, the fervour and solemnity of St Peter, 
the poetic grandeur of Isaiah, the lyric moods of David, the 
ingenuous and majestic narratives of Moses, the sententious and 
royal wisdom of Solomon. Yes, it was all this ; it was Peter, 
Isaiah, Matthew, John, and Moses, but it was God" (Gaussen). 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 203 

pliers, Priests, Kings. And what diversity of 
subjects! Psalms, Prophecies, Canticles, Pro- 
verbs, Laws, Ethics, Biography, History, Letters. 
Yet what concord, homogeneity ! and that too 
without the possibility of collusion, or precon- 
certed plan. The Temple with one Altar and 
one God, yet with a thousand windows all 
shedding the same mellowed divine light. 
They have weaved one beautiful, consistent 
pattern, one harmonious whole. They point to 
one and the same glorious method of salvation, 
and one too beyond the ken of human reason. 
" Built upon the foundation of Apostles and 
Prophets/' we have here a building " fitly framed 
together/' It is more than man's work. It 
points to its own high original. It bears the 
seal and signature of Heaven. 

How wonderfully, too, has God preserved the 
Bible amid surrounding error and corruption, 
causing it to come down unmutilated and un- 
injured, and to float like a sacred ark in the 
midst of the w r aters. No Book has been in such 
jeopardy. And no wonder ; for its precepts are 
so holy ; in this respect presenting such a con- 



204 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL S 

trast with the impure systems of Pagan religion 
and philosophy, — the mythologies of Greece and 
Rome, the Shasters of the Brahmin, the writ- 
ings of Confucius, and the Koran of Mahomet. 
Running counter to all the corruptions of fallen 
humanity, it yet still outlives all assaults. The 
philosophic pen of Gibbon assailed it ; the 
polished shafts of Bolingbroke ; the subtlety 
of Mirabeau and Rousseau ; the blasphemy of 
Voltaire. The bush has burned with fire, but 
the living God is in the bush, and therefore it 
is not consumed. So that we can say of His 
Word, what the Psalmist said of His Works in 
the firmament of heaven, "They continue this 
day according to Thine ordinance, for all are 
Thy servants." 

II. Let me pass now, in the second place, to 
note, in the text, the object of the Scriptures : 
" Which are able to make thee wise unto salva- 
tion" In reading a book, we either have, or 
ought to have, its object in view. We do not 
look to it for information on foreign or extrane- 
ous subjects. We are content if each writer 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 205 

handles, ably and well, the matter on hand. How 
many a querulous and captious mind would 
reject the Bible as not inspired, because its 
writers have not anticipated the discoveries of 
modern science, or because, in some embarrass- 
ing phrases, they seem to run counter to its 
conclusions and deductions. We answer, — The 
Bible was not written to be an authority, or 
book of reference, on cosmical subjects ; to in- 
struct on geological epochs and primary strata, 
nor to anticipate the philosopher — the High 
priest of nature — in the discovery of those great 
laws which regulate alike the formation of the 
raindrop, and the revolution of the planets. It 
was written, not to solve physical problems, but 
to " make wise unto salvation." Moreover, even 
when Science and Revelation are apparently 
in antagonism, it is our duty not precipitately 
to accept, by any rash induction, plausible 
theories, until these are fully tested and con- 
firmed. With the profoundest reverence for 
our great explorers of nature, we have had 
experience that oracular responses from the 
Temple of science are not to be received, in all 



206 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL* S 

cases, as final and infallible, and that what 
sometimes has been boldly inserted in the 
category of ascertained data, has been nulli- 
fied and negatived by subsequent discoveries. 
" He that believeth in this, as in more impor- 
tant things, should 'not make haste.'" Nay, 
more ; we make bold to say, there is no such 
real and formidable antagonism, as is often 
alleged, between science and inspiration. Some 
of the most distinguished votaries of the former 
have received, w r ith the simplicity and docility 
of children, the lessons of the sacred page. They 
have attested, alike in their living and in their 
dying hours, that (to use the words of one 
of the master intellects of the age) " the most 
daring speculations as to nature, may be accom- 
panied with the humblest faith in those sublime 
doctrines, that open Heaven alike to the wisest 
philosopher and to the simplest peasant." 

My brethren, let us look to this blessed 
Bible as a great personal blessing. I am war- 
ranted to each individual here to say, ' It is a 
message from God to thee! It is the very mes- 
sage you need. It comes home to the great 



TESTIMOXY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 20J 

heart of humanity. How it speaks to the con- 
science ! What a discerner of the moral being! 
Like the wheels of Ezekiel's vision, it is " full 
of eyes before and behind." How it ransacks 
the halls of memory ; penetrates the labyrinths 
of the soul ; — a faithful mirror reflecting and 
exposing the chambers of imagery. And then, 
when it brings you and me as poor, helpless, 
needy, condemned, lost, to yearn after some 
1 Daysman ' to ' lay his hand upon us both,' 
it presents us with the object of our search. It 
meets the longing necessities of our natures — 
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved." It offers us a complete salva- 
tion ; a salvation not only from the guilt, but 
from the power of sin. It comes to us, in- 
dependent of all churches and conventional 
distinctions. It meets us on the common 
ground of humanity ; as sinners carrying the 
same burdens, subject to the same weaknesses, 
grappling with the same temptations, bowed 
with the same sorrows, travelling to the same 
goal of death, having the same reversion of an 
eternal destiny. Never book spake like this 



208 THE BIBLE IN ROME: ST PAUL'S 

Book. You can say of it, as David of Goliath's 
sword, " There is none like it." It is a volume 
suited for all, designed for all ; — young and old, 
rich and poor, learned and unlearned. In the 
well-known words of Tertullian, " It is like a 
great lake, in which some places are so deep 
that an elephant may swim in them, and other 
parts so shallow that a child can wade through 
them." And, last of all, it opens, as no other 
Revelation ever did, or ever can, the gates into 
the Celestial City. It is a glorious fiery pillar, 
lighting the van of the true Israel of God 
through every stage of the journey, till it brings 
them to the heavenly Canaan. And is not 
this an object worthy of the Great Father of 
all? — to prepare this missive of love for His 
sin-stricken, diseased, captive, dying children ; 
that with it in their hands as an infallible direc- 
tory and guide, they may go up and on through 
the wilderness to the Eternal Home, gladdened 
with hopes which are full of immortality ! 

III. Let us note, finally, the way or medium 
by which the Scriptures make wise unto salva- 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 20$ 

tion. It is u through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus! 9 The whole plan of salvation is therein 
clearly revealed, but we require to put forth the 
hand of faith to appropriate and make it our 
own. The Divine Word contains the remedy ; 
but you must apply it by faith , if you would ex- 
perience the healing power. And it is "through 
faith which is in Christ Jesus!' To Him the 
Scriptures ever point It was His own asser- 
tion, when unfolding the work of the Holy 
Spirit — the Inspirer of these sacred penmen, 
" He shall glorify ME, for He shall receive of 
mine, and shall show it unto you!' To Him 
every street in this Bible city conducts, as its 
Great Centre. John's exclamation forms the 
key-note to all the music of the inspired canon 
with its varying harmonies^ " Behold the Lamb 
of God !" "This is the record, that God hath 
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His 
Son." It is not likely that I address any such 
on this occasion, but if there be even one here, 
in this sceptic age, who may have been hitherto 
a neglecter of his Bible, — perhaps secretly calling 

in question its verity as an inspired Book, — I 

o 



2 1 THE BIBLE IN ROME .' ST PA UL 's 



would say, " Go, read that Bible ; not with a 
querulous, captious, cavilling spirit, warped and 
biassed with foregone conclusions, seeking 
only to find fault, and to discover flaws and 
blemishes ; but read it " as you would a letter 
from the father you love in a distant land ;" 
read it with a candid, honest, open, unprejudiced, 
child-like mind, and you will find it contains the 
very message and the very salvation your 
needy soul requires : li The meek will He guide 
in judgment, and the meek will He teach His 
way/' We do not undervalue the external evi- 
dences of the Bible's genuineness and authen- 
ticity ; but we dwell much on the subjective 
evidence. It addresses itself to the heart. It 
discovers its secret maladies. It offers a blessed 
panacea and cure for its deepest wounds and 
most inveterate ailments. It only asks us to 
test their efficacy by immediate application : 
" If any man will do (or willeth to do) His 
will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be 
of God " — " The entrance of Thy Word giveth 
light, it giveth understanding to the simple/' 
You will be best certified that this is the true 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 2 1 1 

light by admitting it, the true bread by eating 
it, the living water by drinking it. To adopt, in 
substance, the simple but apposite illustration of 
a great modern champion of the faith : — " Sup- 
pose a heavenly canopy was let down from the 
sky on the earth ; that there were protuberances 
here and there on the earth's surface, and that 
this supernal canopy exactly fitted these, what 
would you infer ? Would it not be that He 
who made that canopy knew all the earth; — in 
other words, that he was God ? The Bible is 
that canopy, which He lets down on the human 
heart. Who can doubt that the Creator of the 
heart was the Author of the Book." * See how it 
fits it ! how it speaks to your deepest experience, 
telling you all things that ever you did ! See 
how it rebukes your corruptions ! See how it 
addresses you (as you feel yourselves to be), 
guilty, helpless sinners in His sight ! See how it 
imparts mysterious peace, — tells you of a Friend, 
a Saviour, a Sanctuary, a Heaven ! See how it 
points to rest for the weary, a home for the pro- 

* Dr Chalmers* Evidences of Christianity. 



212 THE BIBLE IN ROME / ST PAUL'S 



digal, salvation for the lost ! How these great 
words of comfort, in prophecy and psalm, which 
Timothy possessed — how these Gospels and 
Epistles which have been bequeathed to the 
Church since his day, have from their store- 
houses of consolation and promise dried your 
tears when you have sat by the deathbed, or 
come broken-hearted from the grave ! Could 
this be the book of impostors ? Could this 
have been written by designing men ? Could 
this be a lie of the Jews of Palestine, or of the 
priesthood of the Middle Ages, palmed on the 
credulous ? Could this be any other book than 
the Book of God ? Oh ! in our times of sorrow, 
sickness, death, " if these foundations were de- 
stroyed, what would the righteous do?" 

And then, let me ask again, if there be any 
here (I hope not), drifting out in the infinite of 
darkness, to whom I can put the question — Has 
infidelity solved for you the great problems of 
aching humanity ? Has it moored you to a safe 
and peaceful anchorage ? Has it spoken the 
needed " Peace, be still !" to your tempest- 
tossed spirit ? You are advancing year by year, 



i 



TES TIMON Y TO ITS A UTHORIT Y. 21$ 

day by day, nearer eternity ; and when yoij 
take at last that infinite leap, where will you 
alight ? Alas ! you know not. Go and test for 
yourselves, by a faithful and reverential perusal 
of God's Holy Word, whether we are only mock- 
ing you with idle tales, when we speak of it as 
offering a safe — the only safe footing. But have 
you read it ? I find that is the pertinent ques- 
tion put by a faithful servant of God, who him- 
self once sat in the seat of the scorner. Speak- 
ing from his own experience, he well adds, that 
the most unreasonable and unphilosophical of all 
sceptics are those who reject this Book of books, 
yet who have never almost opened it — never 
examined the testimony they despise. " Read, 
read the Bible," said Wilberforce on his death- 
bed ; " through all my perplexities I never read 
any other book, and I never felt the want of 
any other. " I ask you, moreover, to read it 
with prayer. Other subjects of study do not 
require to be mastered thus. Books of history 
or science need no such divine accompaniment 
to make them plain. But God has told us that 
the veil of the heart — the veil of unbelief and 



214 THE BIBLE IN ROME .* ST PA UL S 

prejudice — must be rent away. Prayer is the 
hand which removes the obstruction. Prayer 
is the sacred ploughshare which lays open the 
furrows of the soul for the reception of the 
heavenly seed. Prayer is the divine telescope 
which reveals the glories of the inspired firma- 
ment. " Open Thou mine eyes that I may 
behold wondrous things out of Thy law/' 
When the once infidel Lord Lyttelton came to 
peruse the Scriptures in this teachable, devo- 
tional spirit, see how he believed and trembled 
and rejoiced, and built up the faith which he 
once sought to destroy ; so that he could have 
been sooner convinced that no sun blazed in 
the heavens by day, or no moon shed her 
silvery glory by night, than that this Holy Book 
and its Author were not divine. Cling to it 
through life's morning and midday, as the man 
of your counsel. At life's sunset, let its glorious 
truths, like the Alpine summits, be illuminated 
to your spiritual vision when the valleys are 
in shadow. Be able then to say, with good 
old Dr Marsh of Beckenham, after a life of lofty 
consecration, as the glories of the New Jerusa- 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 21$ 

lem were dawning upon him — " With this staff 
have I travelled through my pilgrimage, and 
with this staff shall I pass through Jordan." 

And what this precious Bible has proved to 
individuals, may it prove (or rather, has it not 
by God's blessing proved, and will it not still 
further prove), to nations — to the world ? Those 
kingdoms are now the few exceptions which 
have not already listened to its sublime messages. 
Traverse what climes we may, to earth's remotest 
shores, there is no speech nor language where 
the voice of the Holy Oracles has not been 
heard. Their u line is gone to all the earth, 
and their words unto the end of the world/' 
We behold the Esquimaux and the Laplander 
in the frigid zone, gazing, through them, on the 
better Sun of Righteousness. We behold the 
Gospel Temple gleaming amid the fogs of their 
eternal winter ; we hear the Gospel Anthem 
chanted by their hardy sons. Under the teach- 
ings of Scripture, we behold the slave forgetting 
his chains, in the consciousness of a freedom of 
which the tyrant that galls him knows nothing. 



2 1 6 THE BIBLE IN ROME I ST PA UL 's 

We behold the degraded African — the type of 
mental imbecility, weeping over his Bible, and 
exulting in the wisdom that cometh down from 
above. We behold the swarthy Indian of the 
Far West, hanging the trumpet of war mute on 
the walls of the Gospel Sanctuary, and, leaning 
on his reversed spear, listening to this Word of 
life from the Ambassador of peace. We behold 
the bloodthirsty cannibal, as he reads the 
blessed page, shedding tears over the victims of 
past ferocity, and exulting only in the blood 
which cleanseth from all sin. We behold, 
under its unfoldings of a nobler philosophy, the 
Pagodas of India tottering to their base, and 
the subtleties of the Hindoo yielding to the 
sublime simplicities of the faith of Jesus. We 
behold, through its revelations of the true 
" Celestial,'' the Chinese renouncing hereditary 
superstitions, exulting alone in those walls 
which are salvation, and those gates which are 
praise ; a response (feeble yet it may be, but 
which will one day become as the voice of many 
waters), given to the dying missionary's noble 
battle-cry — " China for Christ ! " Nearer home, 



TEST I M OX Y TO ITS AUTHORITY. 21 



we behold Spain — Spain, so rich in material 
resources, — the country, above all others, on 
which Nature has poured her bounties with 
most lavish profusion, rising from the tyranny 
of ages ; and as she claims her place among the 
nations of u the free/' asserting her right also to 
freedom's best heritage — liberty of conscience, 
and an unclasped Bible. And, more than all, 
this ITALY — the most magnificent of earth's in- 
heritances, from the Alps to the Adriatic, can 
now hear and read the Word of life. We know 
too well, that while the Apocalyptic Angel, 
with the little Book in his hand, had, for half a 
century, winged his way unchallenged to the 
remotest wilds of heathenism, — to Roman Chris- 
tendom that everlasting Gospel was an inter- 
dicted and forbidden Volume. It is so no 
longer. Two Bible depots, as you are aware, 
are now opened in two of the principal streets 
in this capital. One of these shared, a few 
weeks ago, in the common disaster caused by 
the sudden flooding of the Tiber. But let us 
accept it, in the old city of omens, rather as the 
emblem and prophecy of coming blessing, when 



2 1 8 THE BIBLE IN ROME : ST PA UL 9 S 

the Spirit of the Lord shall descend u as floods 
upon the dry ground," and like the swollen river 
of Ezekiel's vision (bearing on its bosom the 
great message of love and mercy), "wherever 
the river cometh, there shall be life." Yes ! the 
God of the Bible is appearing to stand by the 
gates of this glorious land, and saying to all 
Churches and all Bible Societies, " Behold, I 
have set before you an open door, and no man 
can shut it." 

Who that has visited the recent excavations 
at the Palatine Hill, can have failed to note that 
remarkable ilex-tree, whose root and scarred 
stem, though long buried among the ruins, has 
not only survived, but survived to rend the old 
palace walls, and shoot upwards in a mass of 
living green, overtopping the desolation around ? 
It alone has apparently outlived the Caesars, — 
triumphed over the wreck and decay of palatial 
residences, which their imperial builders deemed 
to be immortal. May we not take it as a type 
and symbol of the triumphs in reserve for God's 
Word, long buried in this country by the apostasy 
of ages ? The day has come when the true 



TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 2ig 

Living Tree has rent the superincumbent walls, 
and is now sending its roots downwards and its 
branches upwards, reading the great lesson to 
the oldest kingdom of the world, in the midst 
of a city which called itself Eternal — u The 
erass withereth, the flower fadeth, BUT the Word 
of our God shall stand for ever!' May the leaves 
of the Tree be more and more for the healing of 
this nation ! May there be many faithful men 
raised up from among all the true Churches of 
Christendom, to sound forth, in its midst, the 
silver tones of this true Trumpet of Jubilee ! 
May there be earnest effort, simple faith, faith- 
ful prayer, abundant blessing ! May the Lord 
Himself give the word, and great shall be the 
company of them that publish it ! 



SERMON V. 



t JaMl's (tafoerts xn *§,amt: Qwum% fjje 
5flltr»rs— Jlmong % |$00r uvfo 



" But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the 
things which happened unto me have fallen out 
rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel ; so that 
my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, 
arid in all other places."— Philip, i. 12, 13. 

" Yet, for love's sake, I rather beseech thee, being such 
an one as Paul the aged, and now also a 
prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee 

FOR MY SON ONESIMUS, WHOM I HAVE BEGOTTEN 
IN MY BONDS." — PHILEM. 9, IO. 

* With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is 
one of you : they shall make known unto you all 
things which are done here." — COL. iv. 9, 



V, 
(Preached at the Porta del P oft o to, March 19, 187 1.) 

Philem. 9, 10. 

" Being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a 
prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee for my son 
Onesimus, whom I hatfe begotten in my bonds." 

f~\ N a recent Sabbath, I spoke of St Paul's 
^-^ confidential friends — the sacred fellow- 
ships he enjoyed in ROME, and more especially 
his main friendship, that of Timothy. 

It would be interesting for us to know all the 
history of these two long and eventful years in 
his " hired house ;" the intercourse he held with 
brethren and congenial associates ; the influence 
the great man must have exercised over the 
minds of the very soldiers to whom he was 
chained, similar to the kindred marvellous in- 
fluence we find him wielding among the sailors 



222 st paul's converts in rome : 

in the Sea of Adria. In the case of such 
prisoners as he, it was the custom for the soldier 
on guard to be relieved frequently, if not daily. 
We may imagine therefore, in the course of 
"two whole years," how many such sentinels 
would have the privilege of seeing and hearing 
the "ambassador in bonds ;" listening at times, 
as he dictated to his amanuensis, those beauti- 
ful Epistles, written not for individual Churches 
alone, but for the ages; or, more frequently, being 
auditors of his conversation and arguments with 
the crowds who, it would seem, flocked to 'his 
dwelling, and were permitted to hold with him 
the freest intercourse, " no man forbidding 
them." * How many would go back, night by 
night, or day by day, to their barracks to retail 
the story of this singular captive ; his boldness, 
and earnestness, and ardour — qualities of all 
others most likely to enlist their interest and 
commendation ! Among that mass of diverse 
human hearts, the Gospel would doubtless 



* See this admirably stated by Dean Howson in his " Com- 
panions of St Paul," p. 225. 



ONESIMUS. 223 



manifest the same varied results it has always 
displayed, either as " the savour of life unto 
life," or " of death unto death/' Some of these 
soldiers would return to the Prsetorium, or 
Campus Martius, mocking ; others marvelling ; 
others (as we know) believing. Yes, and doubt- 
less these latter would be doomed to undergo 
the same scoffing and ridicule on the part of 
their unsympathising comrades, which the 
British officer or private who avows himself a 
soldier of the cross, has too often to do at this 
day. Is it not more than probable that it was 
these believing sentinels in the Apostle's lodg- 
ing, who had listened to his wondrous tale of 
God's love in Christ, who would prove the most 
effective instruments in the spread of the truths 
of the Gospel ? In a military capital like that 
of Rome, we can well imagine what a power 
w T ould be exercised by those of its soldiers who 
had espoused the Christian faith. Not only 
would this be the case while quartered within 
the city itself, but in their foreign campaigns, 
would they not become the most effective pio- 
neers of the missionary, in carrying tidings of 



224 $ T PA u£s CONVERTS IN ROME I 



the new religion to these distant lands ? * There 
is a surmise, on the part of some writers, that 
St Paul himself may have reached the shores of 
Britain, and proclaimed the Gospel to its savage 
hordes. More likely is it at this time, when we 
know the armies of Rome were planting their 
eagles in the fens of Norfolk, Cambridge, and 
Huntingdon, and on the towers of Colchester, 
St Albans, and t London, that some of those 
very soldiers who, but lately, had had their 
hands chained to his in the hired house by the 
Tiber, may have carried the glad tidings re- 
ceived from his lips, and proclaimed them by 
the banks of the Cam, the Stour, and the 
Thames. So that, in accordance with his own 
words, which have formed part of our reading 
to-day, his "bonds in Christ" were known not 
only " in all the Palace (or Praetorian barracks 
as that rather means), but in all other places!' 'f 

* " Companions of St Paul," p. 228. 

f No memorial of these early years of the Christian era was so 
impressive to me, as that wonderful Graphite, now to be seen in 
Rome, in the College of the Jesuits (Collegio Romano). Pain- 
ful, indeed, and repelling it is, in its blasphemy, but valuable 
beyond measure as a testimony to the Deity of Christ. In com- 



ONESIMUS. 225 



We may probably, in our next, come to speak 
of the effects of St Paul's presence and preaching 
on the higher ranks in the Roman capital, reach- 
ing even to the inmates of the Imperial Palace. 

pany with a distinguished archaeologist, I had visited the spot in 
the Imperial Barracks, -on the south substructions of the Pala- 
tine, upon whose plaster-wall this rude drawing of about a foot 
oblong had been discovered. On being admitted to see the 
fragment itself, I made as careful a copy of it as I could. I 
confess, so revolting is the treatment of the most sacred of all 
subjects, that I hesitated considerably before incorporating it in 
this note. But it supplies such a wonderful indirect evidence to 
the great foundation-truth of the Christian system, that I have 
deemed it well to waive these scruples, and subjoin it thus, in a 
very diminutive form. It consists, as 
will at once be seen, of a rude represen- 
tation of the crucifixion. The Saviour 
is represented on the Cross having the 
head of an ass ; and beneath, or at the 
side, is the supposed figure of a wor- 
shipper, with the inscription, "Alexa- 
menos sebete Theon" (" Alexamenos 
V^ U) JV worships God "). In other words, " See 
such a God as Alexamenos worships ! " It is impossible to pro- 
nounce as to the particular era of the Graphite (or, as it is well 
called, " Graffito Blasphemo "), although undoubtedly it belongs 
to one of the earlier centuries, and possibly it may be to the first. 
[By some it is attributed to the reign of Septimius Severus. 
Garrucci, who appears to have been present at the discovery, 
places it at the beginning of the third century. See the grounds 
for this stated in his "Deux Monuments des Premiers Siecles" 
&c, Rome, 1862.] Let us suppose, however (to give vividness 

P 




226 ST PA UL'S CONVERTS IN ROME I 

But in addition to the probable, or rather the cer- 
tain influence, which, as we have now described, 
he exercised on the common soldiers, it is equally- 
interesting to think of the success achieved by 

to the explanation, without in anyway supporting or vindicating 
so early a date), that it was of the time of St Paul. A soldier 
(one who had either listened casually to his preaching, or one of 
those to whom he was chained) had become a convert to Chris- 
tianity. This converted soldier returns to the Palatine, and 
relates his new belief to his scoffing comrade. The latter turns 
the creed of his fellow-soldier into ridicule ; and just in the way 
that you would expect from a rude, uncultivated heathen, the 
latter scratches this hideous caricature on the wall of their bar- 
rack-room. The apartment is quite a small one, forming one of 
a row ; this again consisting probably of stables for the horses, 
as well as guard- chambers for the men. Little did this jeering 
Pagan dream, that his blasphemous work would be one day dug 
up as one of the evidences of Christianity, proving, as it does in 
the most incontestable form, that the early converts believed the 
great doctrine that that crucified Man was none other than God. 
If it occur to any reader as curious, that the inscription of the 
Graphite is not in Latin, but in Greek, it should be borne in mind 
that among the Praetorian Guard of those ages there were as 
many Greeks as Romans. So prevalent was the Greek language, 
that Paul's own Epistle to the Romans is written in it. The 
Greek letters under the shocking representation, give surely to 
the words of the Apostle elsewhere, greater power and signifi- 
cance : u Christ crucified . . . unto the Greeks foolishness" (i Cor. 
i. 23). I would advise all visitors to Rome to see for themselves 
this strange but convincing vindication of the Gospel's cardinal 
truth ; the sceptic soldier's unintentional attestation to " the 
great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." 



ONE SIM US. 227 



him on those occupying a still different posi- 
tion and scale in social life. The distinctive 
peculiarity of that Gospel he proclaimed, was, 
that it was a gospel for the poor ; — the opening 
proclamation and manifesto of his great Master 
was this : " To the poor the Gospel is preached." 
And not only was it a message of mercy to those 
who were the children of poverty in respect of 
outer circumstances and condition, — those whose 
only birthright was worldly penury, — the beggars 
on the highway or at the gate, stretching forth 
their hands for the pittance of the passers-by ; 
but still more was it adapted for the many, who 
combined with this external misery, spiritual 
degradation ; prodigals wallowing alike in phy- 
sical and moral pollution — the dregs and sweep- 
ings of humanity — castaways of crime, drifting 
along, reckless and unsuccoured, on the world's 
wide ocean. 

Had St Paul encountered any such in Rome ? 
In that lodging of his (be it where it may), had 
no such outcast from the degraded homes which 
surrounded him, come to hear those strange and 
unwonted words of kindness and compassion ? 



228 st paul's converts in pome : 

Was there no abandoned child of Israel who 
may have rushed to the dens of the Trastevere * 
to screen himself from the penalties of some 
hideous crime, who may have crept from his 
concealment to hear the new tidings brought 
by this chained prisoner from the land of his 
Fathers ? 

We have such an instance of the power of the 
Gospel to reclaim the most worthless and de- 
graded, in the case of ONESIMUS. His story 
is embodied in one of the most perfect Epistles 
that was ever written ; a pattern of letter- writing ; 
a model of beauty, and tact, and delicate con- 
sideration, which we cannot too minutely study, 
and too studiously imitate. It has been well 
denominated by an old writer "The polite 
Epistle. ,, A celebrated letter, distinguished for 
its terseness and elegance, written by the younger 
Pliny on a subject precisely identical, has often 
been brought into comparison with it. But the 
refined art and courtesy of Christian love trans- 

* The Trastevere, as we have explained in the Introductory 
Chapter, formed the residence of the Jews, and corresponded 
with the modern Ghetto. 



ONESIMUS. 22() 



scend the pathos even of the cultured Roman.* 
Ere we proceed to the subject of this unique 
letter, it may be well to observe in passing, in 
connection with its great writer, that it affords 
confirmation of what more than one commenta- 
tor has noted — the joyous and animated tone 
which pervades all the Epistles written during 
his first imprisonment. Whatever might be his 
outer circumstances, it is evident the illustrious 
captive himself, the unabashed freeman of Christ, 
had become no prey to gloominess ; on the con- 
trary, that he was possessor of an inner light 
and peace — an elastic energy of soul, which had 

* See Smith's Bible Dictionary, art. " Ep. to Philemon." In 
the same article, it is mentioned that the distinguished Lavater 
preached thirty-nine sermons on the contents of this brief com- 
position. Luther's estimate of it, as quoted by Alford in his 
Proleg., is eminently characteristic : — "This Epistle showeth a 
right noble lovely example of Christian love. Here we see how 
St Paul layeth himself out for the poor Onesimus, and with all 
his means pleadeth his cause with his Master. . . . Even as 
Christ did for us with God the Father, thus also doth St Paul 
for Onesimus with Philemon. For Christ also stripped Himself 
of His right, and by love and humility enforced the Father to lay 
aside His wrath and power, and to take us to His grace for the 
sake of Christ who lovingly pleaded our cause, and with all His 
heart layeth Himself out for us. For we are all His Onesimi, 
to my thinking/ 5 



230 ST PAUL S CONVERTS IN ROME : 

its outward expression in cheerful, and even 
exultant words. To use the language of an 
able German theologian, " They are effusions of 
holy joy from the prisoner of the Lord. That 
to the Ephesians, a circular Epistle to the 
Churches in and about Ephesus, is a ' song of 
degrees' set for the Church of Christ. In it, he 
contemplates with holy ecstasy God's marvel- 
building, reared of living souls, and growing to- 
gether, an holy temple in the Lord, as the 
historical realisation of the mystery of Christ. 
Hand in hand with this, goes that to the Colos- 
sians, which breathes all the heavenly joy of a 
cross-honoured confessor. ... In his Philippian 
Epistle, Paul's heart leaps for joy and cannot be 
sad. A dozen times and more, the word 'joy' 
and i rejoice ' occur in it. The Philippian 
Church — this pearl of his first love (Acts xvi.) — 
remained his jewel through life. He cheerfully 
accepted their i ministering unto his necessities/ 
and they were also privileged to communicate 
with his affliction even at Rome. . . . With great 
joy also he writes to Philemon ; all the grace and 
loveliness of a manly soul breathes its rich per- 



ONESIMUS. 23I 



fume through this little letter of Paul, who in 
his bonds plays merrily on words,* beseeching 
Philemon to place to his account, as partner, 
anything which Onesimus (once servant, now a 
brother) might be indebted to their joint firm 
of love." t 

There are three individuals, three dramatis 
persona (if I might so speak), who divide the 
interest of the letter — the Apostle Paul, the 
householder of Colosse, and his slave Onesimus. 
To unfold the little we know regarding the 
latter, we shall group the three together, and 
endeavour, from the combination, to glean some 
profitable reflections. 

The world, the most civilised portion of it too, 
was then cursed with slavery ; and no country 
more so than Phrygia, of which Colosse was the 
capital. You will remember that St Paul, in 
writing his Epistle to the Colossians, specially 
instructs the Christians there, as to the mutual 



* Onesi??itts means " useful " or "profitable." "In time past to 
thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me/' ver. 1 1, 
12. 

t See Besser's "P^ulus" translated by Bulimann, pp. 94, 55. 



'2J2 ST PA UL S CONVERTS IN ROME : 

duties of masters and servants (or slaves). 
u Masters/' he says, " give unto your slaves that 
which is just and equal, knowing that ye have 
also a Master in heaven." " Servants (or slaves) 
obey in all things your masters according to the 
flesh, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in 
singleness of heart, fearing God" (iv. I, iii. 22).. 
Onesimus stood in that relation to Philemon. 
We have good reason to believe he was not, as 
many were, galled by an oppressive yoke of ser- 
vitude. Nevertheless, with the native inborn 
yearning after independence and liberty, he took 
an opportunity of deserting his master. More- 
over, to the guilt of desertion, we have evidence 
from the Epistle, of the greater crime of having 
robbed him. Whether implying a large plunder, 
or a petty embezzlement, we cannot say. Rome 
was of all places, both from its magnitude and 
dense population, that in which a fugitive could 
have the best chance of concealment, and of 
baffling pursuit. Thither accordingly Onesimus, 
with his nefarious gains, seems to have betaken 
himself. The slave of Colosse plunged into the 
lowest abyss of society, an abyss of which wc 



ONESIMUS. 233 



can form some idea from our knowledge of the 
lamentable lower strata in our own modern 
cities. He was an outlaw alike from God and 
man. 

One link alone still bound him to the possi- 
bility of a higher life and better hope. His 
master had become a Christian: he had probably 
been converted by St Paul. Not unlikely, the 
Apostle may have visited the house of the 
wealthy Gentile, on the occasion of his second 
missionary journey, as he passed through 
Phrygia, — and there, having been seen by the 
slave, the latter may have heard from his lips 
the elements of Christian doctrine. At all 
events, the two — these extremes of moral and 
spiritual life, somehow or other, now met at 
Rome. The pure and noble-minded Paul con- 
fronted the debased Onesimus. The name of 
the former, as I have already said, had doubt- 
less become favourably known among not a 
few of the humbler classes of the vast capital. 
They could not understand the religion of 
Jupiter and Mars, but they could understand 
and love the touching tale of that Divine Re- 



234 $? PAUL S CONVERTS IN ROME I 

storer of the suffering and fallen and lost, of 
whom the Jewish preacher spake— Him who 
identified Himself with poverty — the reputed 
carpenter's Son of Nazareth — who, though 
the foxes had holes, and the birds of the 
air had nests, had not where to lay His 
head ! As St Paul, in the spirit of his Divine ■ 
Lord, threw open the doors of his house to " the 
weary and heavy laden," among that ragged 
auditory which thronged his dwelling was found 
ONESIMUS. The grace of God, and the burn- 
ing words of the prisoner- Apostle, pricked his 
conscience and melted his heart. The awful 
sense of his own danger, and of his grievous 
sins, — doubtless, also, of his ingratitude to an 
indulgent master, stung him to the quick. What 
is to be done ? Perhaps he had seen enough of 
St Paul's intercourse with Philemon to feel 
assured, that he could make the former a safe 
and reliable confidant of his heart-sorrows and 
perplexities. He unbosoms to the aged man 
the strange story of his guilt. Nor is his con- 
fidence misplaced. It is a beautiful example, 
indeed, how (despite of other engrossing anxieties 






ONESIMUS. 2 1 



03 



and responsibilities) one individual case could 
enlist the whole energies of a noble nature. 
So that, again after the example of the Good 
Shepherd of the parable, the one footsore and 
weary wanderer was as dear as the ninety and 
nine; and it could be said in a lowlier sense of the 
Apostle, as it was said of a Greater — "He calleth 
his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out." 
But even with such a trusty and powerful 
intercessor, can Onesimus dream of obtaining 
Philemon's forgiveness ? Never ; if his master 
had been one of the many who manifested no 
tenderness for their slaves,- even when they 
were obedient, and who would be incapable of 
exercising mercy or toleration towards runaway 
thieves. An old writer tells us, " that all owners 
were looked upon not only by the Roman laws, 
but by the laws of all nations, as having an 
unlimited power over slaves. So that without 
asking the magistrate's leave, or any public or 
formal trial, they might adjudge them to any 
work or punishment, even to the loss of life 
itself." But Onesimus, who had himself felt the 
subduing, softening power of Christianity, re- 



2$6 ST PAUL S S CONVERTS IN ROME: 

membered his old master Philemon, as now the 
Christian. It was on this ground alone that St 
Paul could urge his suit for the extension of 
pardon and forgiveness, and remove the great 
burden from the penitent's sensitive heart. This 
task, it will at once be evident, was encompassed 
with supreme difficulties, and demanded in its 
discharge consummate prudence and judgment, 
touching, as it required to do, from a Christian 
stand-point, the delicate relation subsisting be- 
tween slaves and masters. But the Apostle 
undertakes it; and doubtless undertakes it all 
the more heartily, as Onesimus, in course of 
time, under his teaching and training, has be- 
come far more than a convert. The once 
runaway slave has been transformed into a lowly 
friend and fellow-helper, giving promise of gifts 
of no ordinary usefulness, which could be turned 
to special account in the infant Church of the 
capital. 

And this is what first of all strikes us in the 
letter — the first great lesson which it teaches — 
it is a lesson we all need constantly to learn 
and re-learn, that of unselfishness. St Paul, as 



ONESIMUS. 237 



we have just said, clung to Onesimus not only 
with a personal attachment as a monument of 
the grace of God (one of the most interesting 
seals of his ministry and apostleship), but as an 
auxiliary also in preaching the Gospel, and 
furthering the great cause of their common 
Lord. He could ill spare him. But duty was 
ever with that holy man paramount, and per- 
sonal considerations subsidiary. He can make 
no selfish arrangements as to retaining services 
so valuable, till he get the sanction of Onesimus' 
master. In a spirit of noble self-denial and 
deference for the rights of others, he surrenders 
his own fond wishes and claims. The journey 
is a long one, — necessarily entailing a period of 
absence and intermission of labour, which the 
Apostle would grudge. But there can be no 
deflection from the path of duty and honourable 
obligation. Onesimus must personally go back 
the bearer of this letter. He must confront his 
old master face to face; and if he return to 
Rome, he must do so with his full approval. In 
the letter itself, how touchingly St Paul brings 
before Philemon, the new relationship which the 



238 st paul's converts in rome : 

Gospel had established between himself and his 
former slave ! He asks (ver. 16), that he be now 
received back, not as a menial and bondsman, 
but as "above a servant, nay, as a brother 
beloved." He assures him, that the kindly- 
sympathy and consideration bestowed on One- 
simus, he would accept in the light of a personal 
boon (ver. 17). " If thou count me therefore a 
partner, receive him as myself ; * — they are all 
one in Christ Jesus. He even delicately refers 
to the money-value of the goods of which Phile- 
mon had been plundered. The poverty-stricken 
Apostle does his best to grant, what has been 
happily called, " a promissory note" for the 
amount of embezzlement (ver. 18) — " If he have 
wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that 
on mine account. /, Paul, have written it with 
mine own hand, I will repay it" 

With this letter in hand, Onesimus proceeds 
to Colosse. We can only imagine what his 
mingled feelings must have been, in approaching 
the house of his old master. We cannot doubt 
the result ; though we are not specially informed 
of it. Both had read the words, " But I say 



ONESIMUS. 239 



unto you, love your enemies ; bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them that despitefully use you and 
persecute you ; that you may be the children of 
your Father which is in Heaven." They were 
now children of that common Father, — members 
of the one spiritual brotherhood, — and rejoice 
together in the same liberty wherewith Christ 
had made them free. " Blessed are the peace- 
makers, for they shall be called the children of 
God." St Paul was now one of these ; and with 
rare tact and courtesy he discharged the duty. 

The reconciliation of those at variance, is 
ofttimes a difficult and ungracious task ; and 
in this case it was peculiarly so. Christian as 
Philemon had become, it was not easy, all at once, 
to uproot or modify the old, harsh, cruel, con- 
temptuous feelings entertained towards slaves. 
They were considered as a degraded race and 
caste, occupying a lower human platform alto- 
gether. As we have seen, too, the robbery, or 
purloining of Onesimus, would naturally not 
tend to abate these prejudices, or to pave the 
way to a kindly consideration of his case. In 



240 ST PAUL S CONVERTS IN ROME I 

one word, even as a believer, Philemon had 
good cause to feel strongly the conduct of this 
menial. And St Paul, it will be observed, in 
his attempt at conciliation, never for a moment 
grounds his plea on right or justice; that would 
have been repudiated. He does not deny, or 
even palliate the wrong. He concedes it. 
Moreover, he ventures no further, at first, than 
asking forgiveness ; but yet, behind all, he hints 
by implication at a larger measure of kindness 
and generosity on the ground of Christian prin- 
ciple, — the ground of that new Gospel-equality 
which sees in every believer a brother, be he 
bond or free. The Apostle touches the ten- 
derest chord of Philemon's spiritual obligation 
to himself, as one of the sons he had begotten 
in the Gospel (ver. 19), "Albeit, I do not say to 
thee how thou owest unto me even thine own 
self besides." Then he throws himself on the 
goodness of his friend (ver. 21), " Having con- 
fidence in thy obedience, I wrote to thee, know- 
ing that thou wilt also do more than I say." 
Right and might could have done nothing in 
the case ; but love and Christian kindness 



ONESIMUS. 241 



triumph. St Paul speaks not to his intellect, but 
to his heart ; — not to the old nature, whose 
hard precept was " an eye for an eye, and a 
tooth for a tooth/' but to the new regenerated 
being. He speaks to the master as a Christian, 
and his plunderer is forgiven ; he speaks to the 
master as a Christian, and his slave is free : not 
only so, but, as we have reason to believe, that 
slave is soon back again in Rome by the side of 
his spiritual father, to tell to others the story of 
a freedom and enfranchisement unknown to the 
imperial despot who was then sitting enthroned 
amid the splendours of the Palatine. What an 
example is the Apostle in this respect ! Paul 
the tentmaker, now Paul the peace-maker. 
How often by kindly mediation, by word or by 
letter, could unhappy divisions be averted, and 
unhappy misunderstandings healed ! Many a 
breach in families, in households, among neigh- 
bours and friends, is made and perpetuated, 
when a soft answer might turn away wrath. 

If St Paul be the model of a Christian media- 
tor and pacificator, PHILEMON is the model of 



242 ST PA UL S CONVERTS IN ROME I 

a Christian layman, a Christian master, a Chris- 
tian man. His character, from various inspired 
touches which intersperse the letter, is all that 
one could wish to see more frequently embodied 
and exemplified in modern life. If there were 
more Pauls and more Philemons in the world, 
the world would be a better and a happier one. 
The sacred writers, as has been well remarked, 
maintain, generally speaking, a studied reserve 
and reticence in pronouncing eulogies on cha- 
racter. The present letter, however, forms in 
this respect a singular exception. Let us glance 
at the portrait and panegyric here drawn of the 
wealthy and liberal householder of Colosse, 
and that, too, by one incapable of fulsome or 
obsequious flattery. First, we have the founda- 
tion of all character in the regenerating, sanc- 
tifying, and elevating power of the Gospel. 
Philemon was not a mere loving man, filled with 
natural goodness and kindliness of heart : these, 
rather, are the two pillars on which the structure 
was reared (ver. 5) — " Thy love and faith which 
thou hast towards the Lord Jesus " — Faith in 
Christ, and that combined with love to Christ. 



ONESIMUS. 243 



Farther, that love was expansive;— loving Christ, 
he must love His people ; and he adds (ver. 5) — 
" Toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints!' 
This love, moreover, was not a mere sentiment. 
It had been " manifested ; " it was a matter of 
notoriety. The Apostle tells us it had caused 
himself great joy and consolation (ver. 7) — 
" Because the bowels of the saints are refreshed 
by thee, brother." And to this Faith and Love 
was added Prayer. His two sister graces were 
strengthened at the incense-altar. There was 
a long way between Rome and Colosse. The 
separating distance prevented St Paul listening 
to the loving words and sympathy of his dear 
friends there. But there was one sustaining 
link which bound them : It was the link and 
the power of Prayer. He was now hopeful 
(and his hope was not unfounded) of a tem- 
porary release, at least, from imprisonment. If 
he received it, he knew that he would be largely 
indebted to the intercessions of his loving dis- 
tant friends, and among these to Philemon (ver. 
22) — " I trust that through your prayers I shall 
be given to you." 



244 ST PAUL S CONVERTS IN ROME * 

And then, in addition to those qualities which 
are more or less specified in the letter, there are 
other touches in the picture we are left and autho- 
rised to fill in. We see, at once, that St Paul is 
writing to no impracticable, unreasonable, inac- 
cessible, opinionative man. But to one who is 
the reverse ; — kind, charitable, just, and generous 
— willing to be guided in what is right — only 
requiring the delicate hint to do a kind thing, 
and it will be done, even though the natural 
heart can perform it with an effort. A beautiful 
character this, when we see so much of the 
reverse, — men stubborn, self-willed, imperious, 
censorious, malevolent, standing on what is their 
right, refusing to yield to better thoughts, wiser 
advisers, more charitable judgments. Philemon, 
and such as he, whether rich or poor, learned or 
unlearned, are the pillars of the truth, the living 
evidences of a living Christianity. It is that, 
which, as we found in the case of Timothy, 
more than the most eloquent preaching, com- 
mends the truth of God ; — the Epistles of 
Christ, " known and read of all men/' Let us 
aspire after such features and elements of cha- 



ONESIMUS. 24; 



racter, — the faith which " worketh by love and 
purifieth the heart, and overcometh the world." 
Christianity is a gigantic system of love — love 
to God and love to the whole human brother- 
hood. " Good-will to men" was one note of the 
triple song of Christ's natal hour, and descrip- 
tive of the whole design and tendency of His 
Gospel. And this love has its thousand tender 
fibres, its little courtesies, and politenesses, its 
thoughtful consideration for the feelings of others. 
" Be pitiful, be courteous." " Be gentle towards 
all men." That man has many of the first 
lessons of Christianity yet to learn, who is surly 
and querulous, peevish and moody ; who takes a 
pleasure in giving utterance to blunt and rude 
and inconsiderate expressions. Courtesy is a 
cheap way of showing kindness ; it costs little, 
but it is worth much. Even in turning away a 
beggar, or refusing him alms, there is a gracious 
way of doing it. The noblest type of man — the 
noblest w 7 ork of God, is the Christian Gentleman; 
and that household is nearest the Christian ideal, 
where are studied, most minutely, those delicate 
offices and interchanges of kindliness, which, like 



246 ST PAUL 9 S CONVERTS IN ROME .' 

golden threads, run through the warp and woof 
of everyday life. Among these, undoubtedly, 
as the case of Onesimus suggests, there is 
kindly consideration for inferiors. Vulgarity is 
often mated and associated with rudeness and 
arrogance and superciliousness to those lower 
in the scale of social life. It is coarse lips 
that are most apt to frame themselves to 
utter defamatory, wrongful, insulting words, to 
those who occupy a humble position in the 
world's conventional ranks of rich and poor; 
just as it has been said, " often the unsightliest 
and least beautiful insects are those which de- 
stroy the fairest flowers/' Whereas, see the 
two greatest specimens of Christian gentlemen I 
can remember in the Bible — Philemon and the 
Roman Centurion. See their kindnesses, — the 
one to his slave, the other to his military ser- 
vant and subordinate. It is to be feared that 
in these days, more attention is paid to dogma 
and formula, than to such beautiful accessories of 
the Christian life. Both are important in their 
way ; but the one ought not, dare not, supersede 
the other ; the fringe should be remembered as 



ONESIMUS. 247 



well as the beautiful garment. "Let this mind 
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Love 
Christ first ; and if that love is perfect, it must 
make itself known, by countless manifestations 
to all around, as w r ell as in our own characters ; 
in mollifying the temper, curbing arrogance, re- 
straining pride, destroying selfishness ; in gener- 
ous consideration for the wishes and wants and 
weaknesses, even the foibles of others. u Put 
on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and be- 
loved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness 
of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing 
one another, and forgiving one another, if any 
man have a quarrel against any : even as Christ 
forgave you, so also do ye. And, above all 
these things, put on charity, w 7 hich is the bond 
of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule 
in your hearts" (Col. iii. 12-15). 

We have no further light thrown on the future 
history of Onesimus. We could have wished to 
know the particulars of his return from Colosse, 
and the renewal of his Christian intercourse with 
St Paul ; we could have wished to know the con- 



248 st faults converts in rome: 

verts made among the masses of heathen Rome 
by this first " city missionary ;" the possibility 
of his having shared with Timothy and others 
the last hours of their illustrious spiritual father, 
and of repaying, in the only way he could, by the 
earnest sympathies of a nature that had been 
" forgiven much," that debt of love too great for 
any earthly recompense. But on all this, the 
sacred narrative is silent * Let us rather, as 
the great practical lesson from this interesting 
episode in St Paul's Roman life, think of the 
transforming power of that Gospel of the grace 
of God, in the case of the vilest and most miser- 
able of sinners. After this story of Divine for- 
giveness, who need despair ? That beautiful pro- 
mise has been realised by an innumerable multi- 
tude now in glory, and will be farther fulfilled 
and realised, doubtless, in the case of thousands 



* In the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, A.D. 107, he 
commends Onesimus, their Bishop, for his singular charity. But 
it seems doubtful if this overseer of the Church of Ephesus can 
be identified with St Paul's convert and fellow-labourer. Other 
traditions speak of him as ordained Bishop of Bercea in 
Macedonia ; others, of his having suffered martyrdom in Rome. 
— See Smith's "Bib. Die." in loco. 



ONESIMUS. 249 



still — waking up in penitence and tears from 
their dream of abject hopelessness and despair: 
— " Though ye have lien among the pots, yet 
shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with 
silver, and her feathers with yellow gold " 
(Ps. lxviii. 13). 



SERMON VI 



i Haul's Sperial Salutafams from fyt 
Saints m Casrtr's Jpottse^ftr, 



"All the Saints salute you, chiefly they that 
are of oesar's household." — phil. iv. 22. 



VI. 

(Preached at the Porta del Popolo, March 26 , 1871.) 

Phil. iv. 22. 

a All the Saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Csesar's 

household." 

TAST Sabbath, in prosecuting the theme of 
-■ — ' these discourses — the associations of St 
Paul with the place of our present sojourn — 
we selected an interesting example from the 
case of one in the lowest strata of society, who 
had become a convert of the great Apostle 
during his residence in ROME. The text of 
to-day invites our attention to a remarkable 
counterpart and contrast to this. It discloses 
to us individuals, who had been welcomed by 
him as members of the infant Church of this 
city, not from among the outcast and the poor, 
but from among those who occupied the highest 
social position in the proud capital ; whether 



252 ST PAUL S SPECIAL SAL UTA TIONS 

among the Praetorian Guards, or the civil officers 
and retainers of the Imperial household.* 

The words which I have selected as the 
subject of discourse, are taken from the closing 
salutation to his beloved family of believers 
at Philippi. That city was invested with 
peculiar interest to St Paul. It was the first in 
Europe where he had preached the Gospel and 
planted a Christian Church. Twelve years had 
now rolled by since the memorable morning, 
when, outside its gates, he had bent his knee 
by the river side, and mingled his prayers with 

" Among these, the Roman martyrology mentions Torpes, an 
officer of high rank in Nero's palace, and afterwards a martyr 
for the faith. Chrysostom adds the name of Nero's cup-bearer. 
— See Cave's "Lives of the Apostles." St Paul himself, as we 
have already observed, among other individuals of note and 
nobility, mentions Clemens, and Pudens, and Claudia, and the 
households of Narcissus and Aristobulus. Though not in one 
sense of " Nero's household," yet among the " not many mighty" 
who were called, it is interesting to think even of the possibility, 
according to tradition, of including the name of Nero's cultured 
tutor, Seneca. There seems, at all events, strong ground for the 
surmise, that by means of their mutual friend Burrhus, the great 
Philosopher and the great Apostle held intercourse with one 
another in the world's capital. Letters, though of doubtful 
genuineness, still remain, which are said to have passed between 
them, 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESARS HOUSEHOLD. 253 

those of Lydia and the other lowly worshippers. 
They were twelve years bright with mercy. 
Many were the localities where formerly the 
rites and impurities of Paganism reigned trium- 
phant, which were now studded with Churches 
of Christ, and could number hundreds who had 
received the truth as it is in Jesus. But, just in 
the midst of his usefulness,' — when busied gather- 
ing his spiritual trophies, the Apostle had been 
hurried, as w r e have seen, a prisoner to Rome. 
The Philippians hear of it. The long-inter- 
vening period has not effaced their affectionate 
remembrance. St Paul languishes in confine- 
ment in the world's capital ! They must send a 
messenger to know his state, relieve his necessi- 
ties, and assure him of continued sympathy — un- 
abated love. Epaphroditus, one of their own 
pastors, is selected for the embassy. We can 
imagine the meeting. The Apostle is seated in 
his hired house when a stranger enters. Brother 
embraces brother ; or rather, the aged father 
embraces another son in the faith. The object 
of the visit is told ; mutual tears reveal mutual 
love ; the spirit of the captive revives. Day 



254 £^ PAUL S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS 

by day, and night by night, that solitary 
chamber is cheered by the Philippian believer. 
They mourn, they rejoice, they pray, by turns, 
over themselves, their flocks, the Churches of 
their common Lord ! But, the time for the 
return of Epaphroditus has come. Back he 
must go to the scene of his own labours. Ere 
he take a reluctant farewell, St Paul must 
make him the bearer of some messages of 
love to his distant friends. On the last night 
they are together, the Apostle dictates his 
burning words of consolation and gratitude. It 
is this very Epistle from which our text is taken ! 
We may still further picture the scene, as the 
l£tjle band of converts in Philippi, wait, in 
anxious expectation, to hear the tidings of 
their pastor's mission and the exhortations he 
bears. They have assembled in their own 
sanctuary ; and from one lip after another, 
question after question is put with eager haste : 
— " Is he well ? "— " How stands his faith ? "~ 
" Are his bonds and imprisonment likely soon 
to terminate ? " — " Is he firm as ever in his 
God ?" — " Are we ever to see his face again in 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 255 

the flesh ? " The parchment sheet is unfolded ; 
Epaphroditus reads it to the arrested audience : 
their tears flow; their hearts rejoice. And as 
he is drawing to a conclusion, it is to them not 
the least interesting portion of the letter, to hear 
the loving salutations and benedictions from the 
family of the Saints scattered in the Roman 
capital. In the present instance, however, the 
Apostle evidently has had little time for the 
lengthened enumeration of names which marks 
some of his other Epistles. But if there be 
room and time for no other, there must be one 
exception ; — one household must be singled out 
and mentioned, as warmest in their greetings. 
And what is that ? Is it the home of some 
lowly spirit, similar to the first convert among 
themselves, whose heart (opened by the Lord) 
was gushing forth with the full tide of Christian 
love to all His people ? No ; strange selection ! 
The last house in all Rome, or in all Europe, 
from which they might have expected a kindly 
word of Christian salutation, is that specially 
noted. The infamous despot who now swayed 
the sceptre of the world, was, as we have re- 



256 st paul's special sal uta tions 

peatedly noted, the impersonation of all that 
was monstrous in iniquity and crime. Amid 
the thousand edifices within his capital, surely, 
at least, in these halls of impurity — that palace 
of riot, there can ascend no prayer, and be found 
no Christian ! What is impossible with man is 
possible with God. With God all things are 
possible. In traversing Rome, you may find 
representatives of every rank and station, who, 
having enrolled themselves among the family 
of believers, have gladdened St Paul's lone- 
some lodging with their visits, and had kindly 
messages to send to distant Christian friends. 
But if you would wish to know, who among 
them all were stanchest in their faith and 
deepest in their sympathies, you must seek it 
amid the dependents (it may be courtiers) of 
Nerds Palace. Yes ! we may imagine with what 
strange feelings these assembled Philippians 
must have listened to the startling assurance, 
that while " all the Saints " of Rome saluted 
them, it was " CHIEFLY they that are of Cczsar's 
household" 

From this apparently unimportant clause at 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CjBSAR S HOUSEHOLD. 2$? 

the close of one of St Paul's letters, we may- 
draw, with the Divine aid, many important 
lessons and reflections. It is to a few of these 
that I purpose now T soliciting your attention, 

I. The text illustrates the doctrine of the Divine 
sovereignty in election. The Bible furnishes us 
with an emphatic commentary on God's dealings 
w r ith believers : " My thoughts are not your 
thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith 
the Lord." In regenerating the heart of man, 
He would show us that from first to last the 
operation is His: "Elect of God:" — that He 
stands alone in it ; that " it is not of him that 
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God 
who showeth mercy ; " — His the prerogative, His 
the glory. St Paul's confession must be that 
of every believer, from the hour he is brought 
to his knees in the prayerful agony of con- 
viction on earth, to the hour he is brought, 
with the palm of victory in his hand, before 
the throne — " By the grace of God I am what 
I am." 

It is true, this great Author as well as Finisher 

R 



258 st paul's special sal uta tions 

of the faith, puts signal honour on appointed 
means ; and His general instrumentalities are 
the ordinances of His own institution. The 
Ethiopian treasurer gets comfort and spiritual 
joy, when he is in the act of seeking God by 
reading his Bible : Lydia at her prayer-meet- 
ing : Nicodemus in his nightly visits of anxious 
inquiry. But there are times also when He 
would show that He works how, and when, and 
where He pleases ; — bringing water out of the 
flinty rock ;■ — and, as we found in the case of 
Onesimus, from the rudest and most un- 
promising material, polishing stones for His 
spiritual temple. Not to dwell on manifold 
familiar examples, what have we in the text, 
but another similar and singular illustration 
of God's sovereign grace, entering the palace 
gates of ROME, and that, too, in the reign of 
her most abandoned Emperor, and during the 
lawlessness of her most licentious court ; — ■ 
"Caesars household" furnishing the main pillars 
in the Christian Church there; — those whose 
eyes must have been painfully habituated to 
sights and scenes all adverse to the reception 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CMSAR S HOUSEHOLD, 2$g 

of the truth ; yet, while other eyes were closed, 
and other Roman hearts hardened, God's sav- 
ing power overcomes every obstacle, and brings 
many in these regal halls to own a mightier 
sceptre and more enduring diadem ! 

How, or where they were converted, we are not 
informed. Whether it was by the words of St 
Paul himself, as they gathered around him in 
his own hired house ; or whether those outside 
the Palace, who had welcomed the glorious 
message, communicated it to those within, we 
cannot tell. All we know is, that there were 
Saints there ; that the Gospel had been pro- 
claimed ; the Spirit had striven ; the iron heart 
of the Roman had been melted ; souls were 
saved. While, then, we believe what was said 
of the Saviours ministry is the grand charac- 
teristic still, " The common people heard him 
gladly ; " while, as in the case of the converted 
slave of Colosse, it is " to the poor the Gospel is 
preached," and by the poor the Gospel mainly is 
received ; oh ! never let us limit the operation of 
God's grace and mercy, when we read of that 
grace entering the Palace of Nero ; and that, 



260 st paul's special salutations 

amid the saintly salutations sent by Roman 
Christians to the Philippian Church, were in- 
cluded " chiefly they that are of Caesars house- 
hold." 

II. The text illustrates the doctrine of the 
Perseverance of the saints. The words would 
lead us to infer, that He who had so marvel- 
lously begun the good work, was as marvellously 
carrying it on ; and, in the language the Apostle 
addressed to the Romans in his great Letter, 
making these illustrious converts not only con- 
querors, but "more than conquerors/ 7 The depth 
and tenderness of one Christian affection here 
specially noted (their love for their distant 
brethren), would fairly indicate the more than 
ordinary strength of all the rest. In other 
words, we are led to conclude, that so far from 
the graces of their new nature being gradually 
chilled when brought into unholy contact with 
the antagonistic influences around them, they 
grew, in spite of these, with more than ordinary 
rapidity. Amid the pollutions of that tainted 
atmosphere ; amid the frowns of haughty cour- 



FROM THE SAINTS IN C^SAR's HOUSEHOLD. 26 1 

tiers, and the scoffs and ridicule of a crowd of 
debased and debasing, corrupt and corrupting 
sycophants, they maintained their lofty bearing 
and carried their consistent cross, — rendering 
unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's, but 
all this subordinate, to rendering unto God the 
things that were God's. 

If we hold, therefore, that the " calling " of 
those of Caesar's household is a fine attesta- 
tion of the sovereignty of divine grace, there is 
perhaps a more remarkable testimony still, in 
their case, borne to the power of God's sancti- 
fying, sustaining, and quickening grace ; in the 
fact, that, despite of all hostile, counteracting 
influences, they were able, in the emphatic terms 
used by another Apostle, to " add to their faith, 
constancy!'* It is easy for us, in an age of fashion- 
able profession, to espouse a Gospel-creed, bear 
the Christian name, and be carried down the 
smooth, unopposing stream ; but here, it w^as 
breasting an impetuous torrent. It was the 
lamb venturing in the midst of wolves ; it was 

* In our authorised version rendered virtue (2 Pet. i. 5). 



262 ST PAUL f S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS 

proclaiming Christ to be King of kings, in the 
midst of those whose fawning creed was, " We 
have no king but Csesar." Csesar's household ! 
To them the horrors of the Vatican gardens and 
amphitheatre, and the rush and rage of their 
lions, could not be unfamiliar. Too well they 
knew, that for the Emperor's unnatural and 
barbarous pastime, it was the hated Christians, 
the guileless and guiltless Nazarenes, who were 
the selected victims. And yet, bold as these 
lions were the hearts in his Palace, which had 
the fear of God and no other fear. The new- 
born faith they had espoused, which had im- 
parted to their once grovelling souls a strange, 
mysterious peace (after years, it may be, of 
unrest and misery, degradation and impurity), 
was with them no evanescent conviction, obli- 
terated like the sand rippled by the rising tide. 
They were advancing believers ; growing in 
faith, and love, and holiness : and though 
clothed in the livery of Caesar, they were fear- 
less to declare, in a higher sense, "We have no 
King but Jesus." The very fact of their thus 
openly sending a message to their brethren at 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CJESAR S HOUSEHOLD, 263 

Philippi, evidenced that they neither wished to 
conceal their sentiments nor dreaded to avow 
their creed. 

And how was this ? How came the Christians 
in Nero's Palace to have braced themselves with 
such boldness and spiritual fortitude ? How is 
it that their graces should expand in the very 
spot, where one would have expected them 
rather to wither and die ? 

This leads me to observe : — 

III. The text illustrates yet another Scripture 
doctrine — that God proportions grace to trial. 
" As thy days, so shall thy strength be." The 
history of all His saints attests this truth. When 
the storm rages loudest, the everlasting arms are 
most firmly round about : when the battle is 
hottest, there is new armour provided and new 
strength vouchsafed : when the taper burns with 
a fitful and sickly glow in the tainted atmo- 
sphere, more oil is given. On what other sup- 
position can we explain the moral miracle of 
Daniel's intrepidity in his den ; or the Hebrew 
worthies walking fearless in the burning flames ; 



264 st paul's special salutations 

or the heroism of the noble army of martyrs 
chronicled in after ages, at the record of which 
we stand at times amazed and confounded ? 
They have all one reply — one explanation- — 
u Yet not I ; but the grace of God which was 
with me." Yes ! the thorn in the flesh is en- 
dured ; the dungeon-vault is transformed into a 
sanctuary of praise ; the fire and the faggot fail 
to draw a tear or extract a groan ; — for He 
is faithful that promised " My grace is suffi- 
cient for thee, for My strength is made perfect 
in weakness/' We may cease to wonder, then, 
at what otherwise would be all marvel and 
mystery, — how the believers in the Imperial 
residence of Nero could remain so " strong in 
faith, giving glory to God : " — " He giveth more 
grace" And it illustrates God's dealings with 
His people still. The hour of trial comes, and 
grace to bear comes along with it. That cutting 
sorrow or lacerating bereavement, if it had been 
contemplated beforehand, — the anticipation, the 
dark possibility — would have utterly crushed. 
But the blow has come ; and when it does come, 
how wondrously supported ! The storm-blast 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESAR'S HOUSEHOLD. 26$ 

has swept down, perchance, the choicest earthly 
blessings, and left the solitary pilgrim to tread 
alone life's dreary highway ; — but strength is 
vouchsafed ; the path is trodden ; the heart is 
upheld : " God, our Maker, giveth songs in the 
night ! " 

So, in the higher and more difficult spiritual 
walk. One has become a Christian. It is in a 
" Csesar's household ;" all around him threatens 
to damp his spiritual ardour, and mar his fair 
hopes, and overturn his resolutions. How can 
he stand out against the cold indifference, and 
cruel sneer, and open ridicule, and subtle argu- 
ment ? With Jacob he has to say, " All these 
things are against me." But the God of Jacob 
interposes : " Fear not, for I am with thee." 
' He tempers the wind to the shorn lamb/ 
" He giveth power to the faint, and to them 
that have no might He increaseth strength. . . . 
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
strength, they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles." Yes ! your Christian graces will rise out 
of these very trials : this stern discipline will 
make the hardier pilgrim, the better soldier; 



266 st paul's special salutations 

you will be driven from the creature to the 
Creator ; from the shivered reed to the living 
Rock. " Cease ye from man/' will lead you to 
the better alternative, " Trust in the Lord for 
ever ! " If, then, you are at any time tempted, 
from any peculiarity of external circumstance 
or condition, to doubt the possibility of re- 
maining faithful to your God when all are 
unfaithful around, think of this subject and this 
text ; how while St Paul made honourable 
and memorable mention of all the Saints in 
ROME, it was "CHIEFLY they that were of 
Caesar's household." 

IV. A fourth reflection we may draw from 
the text is — The harmony which subsists among 
the whole family of believers. The converts in 
Caesar's household, as we have already observed, 
were, many of them probably, from among the 
humbler dependents. But we know also,* that 
they numbered some of nobler blood, and more 
illustrious pedigree. Be this as it may, even a 

* See Introduction, p. 45, et seq. 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CsESAR's HOUSEHOLD. 267 

servant in the Palace of the Sovereign of the 
world ! there was enough in the very thought 
and name to engender a spirit of haughty and 
supercilious pride, which, in common circum- 
stances, would have scorned at acknowledging 
friendly relations with poor strangers. But 
here, we have those in Nero's Palace not hesi- 
tating to send a friendly message to the lowly 
Christians at Philippi — nay, telling St Paul to 
give assurance, that of all Saints in ROME, they 
felt most kindly and greeted " chiefly." 

How delightful the holy fellowship the Gos- 
gel establishes between believer and believer ! 
It does not level human distinctions — far from 
it : — it honours rank and office as ordinances of 
God. But, in another sense, it does annihilate 
these ; for the exalted Christian recognises the 
lowliest as a member of the one great family, 
of which Christ is the living Head. True, this 
is a fellowship little understood and recognised 
in degenerate days, when the love, alike of 
individuals and of Churches, is waxing cold ; 
when that glorious article, " I believe ... in the 
communion of saints," has become with many 



268 ST PAUL 9 S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS 

an effete thing, left to slumber a dead dogma in 
our creeds. But it was a fellowship unmistak- 
ably cherished and practically illustrated in the 
annals of the early Church. In sending now 
this salutation to the handful of Philippian 
believers, Nero's Christian Senator was not 
ashamed to own the converted gaoler there as 
a brother; the Christian matron remembered 
humble Lydia as a sister in the faith. In social 
position they were different; in spirit, they 
were one in Christ Jesus. The electric spark 
of divine love, struck in the lodging of the 
Apostle, passes to the Palace of the world's 
metropolis; thence it traverses through inter- 
vening countries to the lanes of Philippi, and 
circulates and gladdens wherever a Christian 
Church is planted and a Christian name is 
known. Nay, it would seem from the text, 
that so far from the rank of those w r ho send 
these special greetings detracting from their 
strength and cordiality, the new principles of 
this spiritual life, where vigorously planted, 
lead rather to a triumph over all arbitrary and 
conventional distinctions, — conquering pride, — 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CESAR'S HOUSEHOLD. 269 

bringing each to see in his brother nothing but 
a fellow mortal, a dying creature, a companion 
pilgrim, a joint-heir ! The lofty looks of man 
are abased ; and in lowliness of mind, each 
esteems other better than themselves. We can 
well imagine, therefore, it was with no feigned 
lips or spurious humility, that the converts who 
had just come forth from Caesar's presence 
and the splendour of Caesar's home, when they 
learned that St Paul was writing to the humble, 
lowly followers of Jesus at Philippi, should 
entrust him to send from them special saluta- 
tions. 

But may we not go further still, and add, as 
the true cause why the salutation of Caesar's 
household was the chief, and their love for their 
distant brethren in Christ strongest, because 
their love for Christ Himself was strongest ? 
Like the radii of a circle, the nearer believers 
approach their Lord as their great centre, the 
nearer they are to one another. Where the 
stone falls heaviest, the circles in the quiet 
lake or pool extend the widest. It was so 
at Route. Love to God fell deepest on hearts 



2/0 ST PA UL S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS 

in the halls of Caesar ; and the circles of 
Christian kindness spread from that as a centre. 
They embraced the brotherhood of Philippi, 
and if Saints had been there, they would have 
made their circumference the world ! Where 
the love of Christ is not, or where the pulse of 
love beats languidly, there is ever the likelihood 
of distance and estrangement ; of individual 
Christians crossing and recrossing one another 
in life's path ; of Christian Churches entertaining 
and reciprocating mutual jealousy and distrust. 
What can cause the sundered elements of re- 
ligious society to coalesce, but the magnetising 
influence of that same divine Love attracting 
all hearts, and welding together all Christian 
organisations, in a spirit, at least, of unity and 
co-operation, if incorporation be found undesir- 
able or impossible. These Churches of a now 
divided Christendom, have been too faithfully 
likened to the separate pools of water on the 
rocky beach, each standing apart and alone. 
Bitty let the Love of their common Lord rise to 
its paramount place ; like a mighty wave, let it 
sweep over them all in a new spring-tide of 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CJESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 2JI 

Pentecostal power and blessing ; — then would 
the weary, and apparently unsuccoured cry for 
brotherhood — uttered in secret by many a 
desponding heart — find at last its response : 
then would the Redeemer's Own prayer be 
gloriously fulfilled — " that they all may be 
one" (John xvii. 21). 

V. A fifth reflection we may draw from the 
text is — The sympathy of suffering Saints. This 
is another reason why, in offering the friendly 
and heartfelt salutations of the Roman Church, 
St Paul adds "chiefly they." The power of 
Christian love may have done much ; that of 
sympathy in suffering did more. 

There is nothing that so sacredly binds to- 
gether Christian with Christian as trial. Those 
who before had comparatively little intercourse, 
have lost, at the same time, a beloved child ; or 
hold in common some other similar sad anni- 
versary. It has established between them a new 
and holy link. Even where distance forbids 
acquaintance altogether, when the mother, who 
has had one of her flock taken away, accident- 



272 st paul's special salutations 



ally reads in the obituary of some other heart 
similarly broken, what outflowings of tender 
compassion she has for the far-off stranger, which 
she never felt before, and never could have felt, 
unless she had herself been in the furnace ! It 
was so (though from a different cause) with the 
Saints in Nero's Palace. They had heard, 
through Epaphroditus, of the trials experi- 
enced by the Philippian believers at the hands 
of their pagan brethren. The cause was their 
own. They were themselves bearing this, daily 
cross ; and how can they fail to forward the 
tribute of their heartfelt sympathy to their 
fellow-sufferers : to salute them as such ; and to 
remind them that the Christian's motto and 
watchword is the same in all ages and in all 
ranks, in the palace and in the cottage, in Rome 
and in Philippi — "All that will live godly in 
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. " 

Oh, beautiful feature, also, in true Christi- 
anity ! the pulsations of a living, loving 
compassion ; taking their rise in the heart of 
Jesus Himself (the Great — the Greatest of 
sufferers), on whose bosom of love are in- 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CMSAR S HOUSEHOLD, 273 

scribed the words of dear-bought experience — ■ 
"I know your sorrows:" — these sending their 
sentient thrill throughout the whole mystical 
body; so that "if one member suffer, all the 
members suffer with it ; and if one member 
rejoice, all the members rejoice." Are any 
among us afflicted ? or has the voice of weep- 
ing and lamentation been heard in the dwellings 
of our poorer brethren ? Let us imitate the 
example of the Christians at Rome, by delight- 
ing to minister to others "the same consolations 
wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of 
God." May the result of all our trials be like 
theirs ; to bind us closer to one another in 
sympathy, by binding us closer to HIM ; — lead- 
ing us to feel how light our heaviest chastise- 
ments are, in comparison with those contained 
in the touching challenge — a Was there ever 
any sorrow like unto my sorrow ? " and to re- 
gard these trials in the noble and exalted light 
in which St Paul speaks in this very letter ; — 
Christ honouring His people by thus appointing 
them to pass through the ordeal of suffering — 
" Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, 



274 ST PA UL *£ SPECIAL SALUTA TIONS 



not only to believe, but also to suffer for His 
sake." 

VI. Finally, let us learn from the text, the 
universal adaptation of Christianity to the family* 
of man, and to every condition of life. Whatever 
be the diversity of circumstance or situation, 
there is no rank in the graduating scale of 
society, and no position in the varying phases 
of human relationship, which forbids us to be 
followers of Jesus. Daniel the prime minister 
of all Babylon, and Onesimus the runaway 
slave ; David the minstrel king of Judah, and 
blind Bartimeus on the wayside begging ; Anna 
the prophetess in the Temple, and Lydia the 
seller of purple ; St Paul amid polished philo- 
sophers at Athens, St Paul amid rude sailors 
buffeting a wintry sea; "Paul the aged" and 
Timothy the child ; the household of the Philip- 
plan gaoler, and the household of Imperial 
Caesar ; all, in these diverse paths, can take up 
their cross and serve their God. 

Nay, more ; the text would seem to confirm 
and illustrate a great and important principle, 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESAR 's HOUSEHOLD. 2J$ 

that when God meets His people, and visits 
them with His grace, He generally does so 
while they are prosecuting their ordinary en- 
gagements. He does not first call them out of 
the world (as if godliness and secular duties 
were incompatible), but He reveals Himself to 
them while faithfully occupying the sphere, 
whatever it may be, where His providence has 
placed them; as if to certify, that while diligent 
in their wonted business, they may at the same 
time be " fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
Matthew is sitting at his receipt of custom 
gathering his tribute, he is called there. The 
fishermen of Galilee are mending their nets on 
Tiberias' shore, they are called there. Souls 
within the precincts of Csesar's Palace are to be 
saved, they are saved there. Divine sovereign 
grace finds them occupying their varied posts 
in the Halls of the Palatine ; and they would 
exhibit on the most difficult scale that was ever 
tried, how it is possible for the Christian to be 
in the world, and yet not of the world ; to re- 
main in Csesar's household, and yet to maintain 
intact and uncompromised his allegiance to the 



276 ST PAUL 'S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS 

Prince of the kings of the earth. This is con- 
fessedly indeed a question of great difficulty 
and delicacy, and on which it becomes us to 
speak with extreme caution. For, on the other 
hand, the duty is equally plain and equally 
imperative, in choosing the different paths of 
life, carefully to avoid all doubtful or debat- 
able ground. Wherever we know temptation 
to be, — wherever we dread that our spiritual 
interests are in risk of being endangered, — the 
command is distinct, the duty is paramount — 
" Come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
rate, and touch not the unclean thing:" — If ye 
cannot be in Caesar's household without being 
partaker in Caesar's sins, then i( come out," that 
ye be not partakers in his plagues. But, at the 
same time, our text would seem to tell us, that 
it is the highest achievement of the Christian, 
when a man (strong in the grace of God and 
resolute in the maintenance of principle), can 
with moral intrepidity bear his religion along 
with him in the daily walk, where he knows 
that religion is slighted : and whether it be the 
Artisan among his scoffing fellow-workmen, or 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 2JJ 

the Servant among irreligious domestics, or the 
Ruler among ungodly senators, or the Courtier 
in a dissolute Palace, — to appropriate the high 
motto of the Christian, which formed the theme 
of our opening discourse — "I am not ashamed of 
the Gospel of Christ." If thus enabled, as the 
Apostle expresses.it, "to stand in the evil day, 
and having done all, to stand;" — to stand in the 
hottest of the battle, faithful to our colours, true 
to our God ; — how great may be the power we 
wield, whether in the little or the great world 
of influence ; in rebuking that world's atheism 
and defiant unbelief; its open hostility ; its cold 
indifference ; its covert scepticism ; — causing it 
to take knowledge of us that we have been with 
Jesus, for " this is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our faith." 

Yes ! and possible it is. God would seem to 
put a type in material nature, to tell how the 
warmth of Christian grace, and the fire of Chris- 
tian love, can burn and glow in the midst of all 
that is cold, and cheerless, and repelling. I 
speak not of the type I saw, but the other day, 
in the burning mountain which keeps perpetual 



278 ST PA UL *S SPECIAL SALUTA TIONS 

vigil over the beautiful bay of Naples ; for that 
very coronal of flame, and the fiery tresses of 
lava as then seen streaming from its brow, ap- 
peared almost in harmony with the glow of 
sunshine by day, the halo of serene moonlight 
by night, and the tints of early spring already 
flushing the wealth of vegetation at its base. 
But I speak of a different emblem. Strange 
and startling is the spectacle which arrests the 
shivering mariner in the northern seas ; — Mount 
Hecla, with its frigid slopes wreathed with 
snow and pendant with icicles ; and yet, the 
living fire bursting from its volcano, pouring 
down in molten streams, melting the ice-bound 
sides, and the burning torrents reddening the 
ocean with their glare ! So may the Christian 
be, like that volcano, in the midst of a cold and 
frigid mass of worldliness ; — all around, the 
winter of spiritual desolation and death. But 
the volcanic fire of grace has been at work ; 
down pours the lava-stream of burning love, 
fervid piety, consistent principle; and at the 
sight of this glowing believer — a light in a dark- 
ened world — many a reckless mariner on that 



FROM THE SAINTS IN CAESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 279 

world's ocean is arrested ; sees and owns the 
power of vital godliness, believes and lives I 
Such was Daniel, amid the chilling and cheer- 
less atmosphere of the court of Babylon. He 
might have enjoyed more spiritual tranquillity 
by abandoning his presidency, and (joining his 
captive countrymen, as they were seated by the 
willowed streams), by musing in secret and seclu- 
sion over Jerusalem lost, and longing for Jeru- 
salem restored. But duty forbade him to leave 
the Courtier s place ; he felt that his God might 
there be more glorified, — the cause of truth ad- 
vanced. Nobly was he enabled to fulfil his 
high commission, to speak the Divine Word 
before kings, and not be moved. The same Al- 
mighty arm which supported Daniel in Darius', 
as it afterwards did the Saints in Caesar's house- 
hold, will support us. Let us " be strong and 
of a good courage ;" and " though troubles rise, 
and terrors frown, and days of darkness fall," 
we can do all things through Christ strength- 
ening us. Whatever be our condition or posi- 
tion in the world, our lot is ordered, not by us, 
but for us. Let us not venture to plead some 






28o ST PAUL' S SPECIAL SALUTATIONS, ETC, 

peculiarity or hardship of our allotment in life, 
as an apology or extenuation for compromising 
principle and not following God. But re- 
membering, that, even in Caesar's household, 
grace was given and religion maintained ; be 
it ours to serve Him, whether amid the world's 
smiles or the world's frowns : in the palace or 
in the hut : in the mansion of the great or 
the cottages of the poor ; in the hum of the 
city's busy industry, or in the seclusion of 
private life ; and we shall find that in our 
case will be made true the closing benediction 
which St Paul sent by Epaphroditus to the 
Philippian Church — " My God will supply all 
your need, according to his riches in glory by 
Christ Jesus." 



SERMON VII. 



Si 19 awl's IRtxatt in ILom* for 



o % 



" The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesi- 
phorus ; for he oft refreshed me, and was 
not ashamed of my chain : but, when he was 
in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, 
and found me. the lord grant unto him 
that he may find mercy of the lord in that 
DAY : and in how many things he ministered unto 
me at Ephesus, thou knovvest very well." — 2 Tim. i. 
16-18. 

K Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of ONESI- 
phorus." — 2 Tim. iv. 1 9. 



VII. 
{Preached at the Porta del Popolo, April 2, 1871.) 

2 Tim. i. 16-1S. 

u The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus ; 
for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my 
chain : but, when he was in Rome, he sought me 
out very diligently, and found me. The Lord grant 
unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that 
day;' 



W 



E have here another incidental glimpse 
given us from St Paul's later Roman 
life. The Christian, whose generous and heroic 
kindness is in these words so gratefully recorded, 
has no other mention made of him in sacred 
story. Like a transient meteor, he shoots 
athwart the Apostle's evening sky and then 
vanishes from sight. But this one entry has 
embalmed his name amid the holy memories 
of the Apostolic age, and given him a minor 
indeed, but yet abiding, place, in the Bible 



284 ST PA UL'S PR A YER IN ROME 

constellation of the great and good. So that 
wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached 
throughout the whole world, this also that he 
hath done shall be spoken as a memorial of 
him. 

At the time when St Paul wrote the words 
of the text, he was undergoing his second im- 
prisonment. During his previous detention, 
when occupying his own hired house, with no 
other restriction than having a soldier of Nero's 
guard to watch him, many of the brethren, 
waxing confident by his bonds, were " much 
more bold to speak the word without fear" 
(Phil. i. 14). Now, however, the case was 
altered. The indulgence which had tempered 
the irksomeness of that first captivity was 
at an end. During the intervening years, the 
conflagration of the city, caused by the wanton 
caprice of Nero, had taken place ; * and to 

* On account of the havoc made by this conflagration, which 
raged for six days and seven nights without intermission, how 
changed in outward aspect the city must have been, since the 
time St Paul entered it under guard from Puteoli ! Whole 
streets and masses of buildings, which at that first approach hid 
from his view the Esquinal hill, were now swept away ; and in 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 285 

avert from himself the odium of the crime, its 
guilty perpetrator had laid it to the charge 
of the innocent Christians. The audacious 
falsehood was only too successful in rousing 
the popular indignation against the sect of 
which Paul of Tarsus was the acknowledged 
leader. We have good reasons to infer, indeed, 
that he was arrested at Nicopolis on the charge 
of being implicated in the incendiarism, and 
sent by the authorities of that city to be tried 
at Rome. Treated no longer as an honourable 
state prisoner, but as a common criminal, he 
was subjected to a strict military custody — 
immured probably either in the traditional 

their stead, close to the present remains of the baths of Titus, 
the gigantic pile was erected known as " Nero's Golden House." 
It was adorned with baths, gardens, and a lake : while his own 
" Colossus'' — an enormous statue of himself — rose 120 feet high 
from the front of the vestibule. It is a significant comment on 
the transient nature of earthly glory, that in a few brief years, 
this gorgeous park and palace were, in their turn, completely 
erased, in order to make way for a still greater architectural 
wonder, the present Colosseum, Its builder (Vespasian) allowed 
nothing of all the costly magnificence of his predecessor to be 
recalled, save by retaining on the site of the lake the name of 
the "colossal" character of the statue which the new building 
had superseded. See Lewin, vol. ii. p. 937. 



286 ST PA UL*S PR A YER IN ROME 

Mamertine or in some adjoining dungeon.* If 
the rigours of his captivity still permitted the 
occasional visits of former friends and associates, 
the allowance was made only under severe 
restrictions, and at the imminent personal risk 
of those who were impelled, for love's sake, to 
make the venture. Onesiphorus, a Christian of 
Ephesus, was probably one of the earliest of 
these visitors. He had heard that his father 
in the faith pined in a cell in the distant 
capital, and, heedless of the dangers involved 
in such a pilgrimage, he, visits Rome to cheer 
the heart of the illustrious prisoner. The latter, 
in writing to Timothy a brief time before his 
own martyrdom, thus pours forth the language 
of a grateful heart, — " The Lord give mercy 
unto the house of Onesiphorus ; for he oft re- 
freshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain : 
But when he was in Rome, he sought me out 
very diligently, f and found me. The Lord 



* See Introduction, p. J2. 

f There is much implied in this strong expression of the 
Apostle's (crirovdcuoTepov e^r}T7]<jiv). It denotes alike the difficulty 
and danger which beset the mission, and the assiduous pains and 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 2Z*J 

grant unto him that he may find mercy of the 
Lord in that day." 

This prayer of the Apostle is a striking and 
solemn one. Let us, with the divine blessing, 
seek to gather from it a few of those thoughts 
and lessons with which it is replete. 

I. Learn, as a general truth, — that which also 
was suggested in the subject of last Sabbath, 
but which is still more forcibly brought before 
us here ; — the power and value of hitman Sym- 
pathy. Who knows it not ? What heart has 
not kindled under its tender offices ? — who has 
not felt how it soothes, and braces, and 
gladdens ? Take that desolate moment, doubt- 
less well-known, in some one of its varied phases, 
to most who hear me, — when one of the cherished 
earth-bowers of happiness has been suddenly 
and unexpectedly bared and blighted ; one of 
the bright stars expunged from life's firma- 
ment ; — the saddest feature, perhaps, in the 

perseverance the affectionate disciple displayed in accomplishing 
it. " Sought me out with extraordinary diligence." So rendered 
by Alford. 



288 ST PAUL 'S PRA YER IN ROME 

sorrow, being the quenching of that very 
sympathy of which we speak ; — prompting the 
lines so familiar to bereft hearts, because so true 
to their deepest yearnings, — 

11 Oh for the touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! " — 

many can recall how the unutterable anguish 
of that bereavement was assuaged and solaced, 
by the timely visit (like a messenger from the 
upper sanctuary), of some beloved and congenial 
earthly friend, into whose trusted ear the sorrow 
was unburdened, the secret and sacred heart- 
ache confided. How even the mute sympathy 
of look and presence, when words failed in their 
utterance, helped to dry the tears and staunch 
the bleeding wounds ! 

Or, to take a different experience, also not 
unfamiliar. In those terrible seasons, perhaps 
the saddest of the human soul, when overtaken 
by spiritual darkness, — called to grapple with 
fierce inward temptation, "the aching misery 
of earnest doubt ; " — how many, by the strong 
hand of Christian sympathy, have been helped 
up their " Hill Difficulty ! " When some thievish 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 289 

doubts have been robbing them of their peace ; 
when (like the Prophet of the desert, as his brave 
heart in the hour of loneliness failed him, and 
in a paroxysm of weakness and despair he lay 
down longing to die), — they have felt themelves 
driven from their old moorings, and drifting un- 
piloted on a midnight sea, — how sustaining and 
reassuring, amid the moanings of the blast, were 
the accents of human friendship heard uttering 
" Peace, be still ; " exorcising the foul spirit of 
the storm, — rebuking the winds and the waves, 
and restoring the great calm ! How often has 
sickness, in its hours of weariness and depres- 
sion, or old age in the midst of its infirmities, 
been cheered and tranquillised by the loving 
hand and loving voice, — the thousand nameless 
offices of considerate human affection, sooth- 
ing the aching head, and the trembling, fainting 
heart ! Blessed is every such Barnabas : Blessed 
every such "son of consolation:" — the world 
has no nobler inmate. In having such, it is 
" entertaining Angels unawares." - 

More than this, — with all reverence we say it, 
— did not He, who was the great Ideal of perfect 



29O ST PAUL S PRAYER IN ROME 

Humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, 
manifest the affinities of His spotless soul with 
this same holy emotion ? Again and again, 
during His adorable Life on earth, and specially 
towards its close, we are called to note His 
yearning for human (yes, human) sympathy. 
What was the Mount of Transfiguration, but a 
scene of exalted sympathetic communion; re- 
presentatives, alike from the Church militant and 
the Church triumphant, gathered to solace and 
sustain Him in the dread anticipation of His 
awful trial-hour? As that hour approached, 
and the shadows were more densely falling, 
His longings for personal fellowship with His 
disciples seemed to deepen and intensify also : 
" With desire have I desired to eat this pass- 
over with you, before I suffer." In the climax 
of His woe in Gethsemane, He sought to alle- 
viate its unimagined bitterness by having, close 
at His side, the sympathy of those earthly 
friends He deemed most reliable: — "Tarry ye 
here and watch with Me" While a new in- 
gredient of sorrow was poured into His cup, 
when the sympathy, on which He might well 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 20)1 

have calculated as being unfaltering in its con- 
stancy, gave way like a brittle reed ; — the sheep 
scattered as the Shepherd was smitten, and the 
blood-stained warrior of Edom was left to " tread 
the winepress ALOXE" (Isa. lxiii. 3). 

St Paul was, in this, as in other respects, 
endowed with all the nobler and finer feelings 
of human nature. He opened his magnanimous 
soul to the same genial influence, as the flower 
does its closed petals to the sunlight. Every 
now and then, we discover these longings for 
congenial and sustaining fellowship. See how 
he mourns being " left at Athens alone!" 
What a new man he was, when rejoined by 
Timothy and Silas ! How a former visit to the 
city of Troas was damped and saddened, be- 
cause an expected fellow-labourer and friend 
had not been found ; — " My spirit had no rest 
because I found not Titus my brother." When 
the brethren came to meet him at Appii Forum, 
how his soul revived ! He " thanked God and 
took courage." If he felt thus dependent on 
human support, even in the hour of manly 
vigour; how genial and gladdening must such 



292 ST PA UL S PR A YER IN ROME 

sympathy have been to him at this period of 
his history, when that buoyancy and gladness, 
we have previously noted as characterising the 
period of his first imprisonment, must necessarily, 
from various causes, have undergone diminution. 
His energies could not possibly have been what 
they once were, now that threescore winters 
were whitening his locks and furrowing his 
brow ; and the lonely exile was left to encounter 
the privations of a dungeon home. Others in 
his case, too, as with his Lord before him, had 
grown faithless. A Demas-throng — his a sum- 
mer friends," — smiling on him in his prosperity, 
when his missionary bark was sailing over sum- 
mer-seas — borne on with propitious breezes- 
had turned cowards in his adversity. One after 
another, they had left the sinking ship to its 
fate, as the storm-clouds were gathering ! Not, 
however, all. A few tried and trusted ones (and 
Onesiphorus among them), had planted them- 
selves by the side of the venerable Pilot as he 
resigned himself to a hero's death, and were 
willing, if need be, to go down with him in the 
waters. As the ivy clings kindliest around the 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 293 

old, furrowed, battered ruin, so St Paul could 
discover who his true friends were, when he had 
become such an one as ' Paul the aged/ One- 
siphorus brought him no offerings that we know 
of. But the tear in his eye, the kind word, the 
warm grasp of his hand, were like cold water to 
that thirsty soul. We may think of the two in 
this Roman prison : what deathless ties, sympa- 
thetic cords, linked them to one another ! What 
glorious themes warmed their hearts, tuned their 
lips, and evoked their prayers and praises ! 
Their Master's name, His cause, His kingdom, 
His matchless love, His upholding grace,, His 
coming glory, the Church on earthy the Church 
in heaven ! Their own common trials, per- 
plexities, solaces, hopes ! When Onesiphorus 
came to leave Rome for Ephesus, the remem- 
brance of his visit lingered in the Apostle's heart, 
like the music of home voices in the midnight 
sea. The unbefriended prisoner dwells on it, as 
a bright spot in his captivity. And as he now 
writes a letter to his best beloved Timothv, 
asking from him a similar boon — that he would 
hasten to see him before he dies, — he cannot 



294 *>T PAUL S PRAYER IN ROME 

resist telling, in a parenthesis, of this ray of 
kindness that had shot across his darkened 
sky ; how that, while all they of Asia had turned 
from him, one of the citizens of its great capital 
had proved a noble exception, for he had Si oft 
refreshed him, and was not ashamed of Jus 
chain." 

II. Let us note, as a second lesson, the sublime 
recompense of Prayer. St Paul could not in any 
wise remunerate his friend. Silver and gold he 
had none. Even if such had been a befitting 
acknowledgment, he possessed it not. What 
had he to give, who was himself so destitute of 
needful comforts, as to write Timothy in Asia 
Minor — as we specially noted when speaking of 
that strongest and fondest of his friendships — to 
bring with him the old cloak he had left at Troas, 
that it might aid to shelter his aged frame from 
the chill damps of his dungeon ? But one recom- 
pense he has. Yes ; he can restore Onesiphorus 
a hundredfold. He can carry his case to the 
great Recompenser. He can plead God's own 
promised benediction — " Blessed is he that con- 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 295 

sidereth the poor, the Lord shall deliver him in 
the time of trouble." As we found in the case 
of St Paul and Philemon regarding Rome and 
Colosse ; so was it also with Rome and Ephesus. 
These were geographically far distant. The 
Great Sea lay between them. But a wire and 
electric fluid, more wondrous than science and 
ocean in our day have dreamt of, united the two. 
It connected together the two cities on earth, 
and both with the Throne of God. The memory 
of his friend's sympathising visit flits before 
the eye of the Apostle ; and as he is narrating 
the fact to his son in the faith, he must inter- 
rupt for a moment the ; thread of his Epistle, to 
breathe a passing prayer — " The Lord give mercy 
to the house of Onesiphorus. The Lord grant 
that he may find mercy of the Lord on that 
day." That prayer, doubtless, ascended not un- 
answered. There would be blessings innumer- 
able, though we are told not of them, which fell 
on the distant household. 

It is striking to observe that it is "the house 
of Onesiphorus" (not Onesiphorus personally), 
for which the prayer is offered. The question 



296 ST PA UL 'S PR A YER IN ROME 

naturally occurs, What are we to understand 
from this ? It may be, that no more is intended 
but that the Apostle's large heart would embrace 
the whole household of his friend ; that as the 
house of Obededom was blessed on account of 
the Ark, or as the family of Saul were dealt 
with kindly for Jonathan's sake, so does he 
pray, regarding small and great in that distant 
Ephesus home, that God would surely bless 
them ! But we may assign to it, as some com- 
mentators have done, a different interpretation. 
The name of Onesiphorus is mentioned by St 
Paul once more, in the close of this Epistle. 
It is mentioned among the salutations to indi- 
vidual friends. But again, as here, it is "the 
household of Onesiphorus" of which he makes 
mention, not of himself: "Greet Aquila and 
Priscilla and the household of Onesiphorus." 
Does not this give a strong probability to the 
surmise, that that self-denying disciple, so lately 
ministering to a suffering member of the Church 
below, had, when the Apostle wrote, been ad- 
mitted a glorified member of the Church above? 
In other words, that hehad predeceased his be- 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 2Q7 

loved spiritual Father — won before him the 
martyr's crown. It gives an affecting interest 
and beauty to this touching Bible incident. St 
Paul's kind visitor was beyond the need and 
reach of his prayers. But the sepulchre had not 
closed over the memories of that visit. The 
dark tomb or the martyr's axe had not cancelled 
the obligations of Christian gratitude. If the 
grass of Ephesus be waving over his friend's 
grave, or if his martyr-ashes have been strewn 
in insult on the waters, he can claim for 
the orphaned " household " the blessing of the 
Father of the fatherless. Long after the 
Apostle's own dust was laid in its resting-place, 
that dungeon-prayer, uttered from a full heart, 
may have proved to one home in Ephesus, amid 
the whirlwind of persecution (as the scarlet 
thread of Rahab at Jericho), an unknown 
spiritual heirloom, — entailing mysterious bless- 
ings (temporal and spiritual) upon children's 
children. 

Be this as it may ; here, at all events, is a 
recompense which every one can bestow ; the 
noblest and best of all returns for earthly kind- 



298 ST PAUL 'S PR A YER IN ROME 



ness. You can give this, when you can give no 
other — the recompense of prayer. Ay ! and prayer, 
too, can fetch down blessings on the absent : it 
annihilates space; it knows nothing of distance. 
That friend, that brother, the companion of your 
youth, is far separated from you, — out on the 
perilous ocean, away in the distant colony. The 
sound of the Sabbath-bell falls no more on his 
ear; you can go with him no longer to the house 
of God in company ; his place is vacant in the 
pew ; his chair is empty at the table ; his voice 
is missed at the home-hearth ! But you can be 
present with him. Prayer can bring you to his 
side. Prayer can whisper a father's blessing 
over him. Prayer can sprinkle him with better 
than a mother's tears. Prayer can fetch the 
angels of God around him as a guard ; his 
shield in danger, his defence in trouble. Far off 
in her cottage-home, a thousand miles away, a 
mother, all unconscious at the moment of the 
danger of her sailor-boy, is uttering her midnight 
intercession for the wanderer. It has ascended 
at the very crisis of destruction. The cry of the 
trembling form kneeling by her lonely couch 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 2 99 

has rocked the waves to rest. It is a mother's 
"effectual fervent prayers" that have turned the 
storm into a calm ! 

Prayer is still the golden key by which we 
can unlock for others as well as for ourselves 
the treasury of Heaven and " move the arm of 
Omnipotence." What we owe, on the other 
hand, to the prayers which have hovered over 
our cradles, followed us into the world, grappling 
for us in our strong temptations, and which, like 
Jacob wrestling with the Angel, have prevailed, 
will never be known until that Day when the 
secrets of all hearts shall be revealed ! 

III. Observe next, the special boon desired. 
It is Mercy. "The Lord give mercy! 9 "The 
Lord grant that he may find mercy oi the Lord." 
Mercy is a sinner's word. It is the pity which 
God shows to the undeserving. Goodness is 
the term we use when we speak of His kind- 
ness as displayed to His unsinning creatures ; 
mercy is His kindness in its manifestation to 
the miserable and lost. When our souls were 
lying like stranded vessels on the beach, the 



300 ST PA UL S PR A YER IN ROME 

tide of this ocean-mercy set them again float- 
ing on the waters. Mercy is the highest type 
and expression of the divine Goodness. In 
Heaven, the ascription of the unredeemed 
angels is — " God is Love." When they think 
of their own rebel hosts and the penalty of 
apostasy, their cry is — " God is Holy." When 
they think of redeemed man, it is — " The Lord, 
the Lord God, merciful and gracious." Mercy 
is the offended Sovereign proclaiming amnesty 
to rebels — lifting the beggar from the dunghill, 
and setting him among princes. Mercy- — " the 
mercy of God." It is a brief sentence. It can 
be lisped by a child ; but what seraph can 
fathom the depths of its meaning ? An in- 
spired Apostle, baffled in the attempt, seems 
only able to shadow forth its wonders by thus 
heaping together superlatives : " God, who is 
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He 
loved us, even when we were dead in sins" 
(Eph. ii. 4, 5). Amazing thought ! God's 
mercy stooping over us, and His love loving 
us, when we were morally and spiritually dead. 
Did you ever hear of one loving the dead ? 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 30I 

i Yes ! ' a hundred lips reply ; ' we have loved 
the dead ! We have wept and sobbed over the 
cold marble ; — we have loved to gaze on those 
rayless eyes, although the light of life has faded 
from them for ever here ; — with an unutterably 
sacred affection have we loved the broken, 
mutilated casket, even when the bright jewel 
had departed/ But this is not the case in point, 
in estimating the marvels of the mercy of God. 
Let us ask rather — Did you ever love the dead 
outcast on the street ? Did you ever love the 
beggar found, wrapped in rags for his shroud, 
lying on the open highway ? No ! though you 
may have pitied him, compassionated him ; 
though you may have shuddered at the 
spectacle — no tear of love could bedew your 
cheek. But if human compassion is unable 
to tell so wondrous a tale, " Let the redeemed 
of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed 
out of the hand of the enemy/' God has done 
this. God's mercy has reached the point of 
loving the dead outcast — ay ! more — loving the 
dead enemy: "Even when we zvere dead in 
sins ! " That mercy of God in Christ embraces, 



3 02 ST PAUL 7 S PR A YER IN ROME 



too, the vilest and most miserable. None stand 
beyond its pale. No gate — no veil — no flaming 
sword of cherubim bar the way to the mercy- 
seat. Our sins may have reached unto the 
clouds, but the heights of the divine mercy are 
loftier still : " As the heavens are hi^h above 
the earth, so great is His mercy towards them 
that fear Him." Appropriately surely the in- 
spired comment and exhortation seems to 
follow — " Let us, therefore, come boldly unto 
the throne of grace, that we may obtain 
mercy T 

It is this " mercy . of the Lord " which St 
Paul here invokes for his sympathising visitor. 
There is something, perhaps, at first sight, 
strange in the Apostle's prayer in relation to 
him who was the object of it. It is not what 
we would have looked for in the circumstances. 
Onesiphorus had come on an errand of self- 
denying love — a noble episode in that age of 
spiritual heroism. When the Apostle prays for 
him, we almost look for some such petition as 
this — 'The Lord reward him for his deeds! 
Lord ! there is much that this man hath done 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 303 

for me. Great has been his faith, his devotion, 
his unselfishness, his considerate sympathy to 
me, Thy prisoner. He has braved perils of the 
sea, and perils of the city, and perils of false 
brethren, in order to cheer me in my hour of 
loneliness and sorrow. Let not the cup of cold 
water given to Thy disciple, go without the pro- 
mised blessing. Recompense his kindness ac- 
cording to its deserts. Let it be returned a 
thousandfold into his own bosom ! ' No ! he 
remembers him only as a sinner: "The Lord 
have mercy on him ! " 

St Paul would remind us here, of the one only 
ground of hope and confidence and trust we 
have in the sight of a holy God. He was 
indeed the last to undervalue the precious fruits 
of the Spirit, as manifested in the heart and the 
life of the true believer. In the soul that has 
been divinely sanctified and purified, there is 
much to love and admire; — those Christian 
graces — holy affections and holy deeds — flowers 
in the Beloved's garden, which, like so many 
incense-censers, are sending up their fragrant 
perfume to heaven. These, doubtless, are re- 



304 ST PA UL S PR A YER IN ROME 

garded with divine complacency now ; and at 
the Great Day, they will draw from the lips of 
the Righteous Judge the divine approval and 
encomium — " Well done, good and faithful 
servant ! " But what would all these (the best 
of them) avail, when we come to regard them 
as forming the sinner's plea at that bar of un- 
swerving rectitude and equity ? A poor instal- 
ment, verily, in the discharge of an infinite debt. 
To use the words of a writer, it would be " an 
attempt to pay off that debt at one end by 
pence, which has been accumulating by talents 
at the other." If the Apostle himself once 
indulged some such dreams of personal merit 
and sufficiency, the further he advanced in the 
divine life, — the more maturely he grew in grace 
and holiness and purity ; in a word, the nearer 
he approached to God, the more deeply did he 
feel his need of mercy. Hear the estimate he 
gives of his own character and spiritual worthi- 
ness, and that too not in his earlier, but in his 
closing and riper years : — " Less than the least 
of all saints;" — "Sinners, of whom I am the 
chief." In writing to Timothy from Rome, the 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 305 

most joyful word he can utter when he thinks 
of himself, as " before a blasphemer and perse- 
cutor and injurious," is this — "But I obtained 
MERCY." It is the same boon he seeks for 
Onesiphorus, to which he clings, as his own — 
his only, unfailing anchorage. Yes ! come and 
learn from this giant in grace, when standing on 
the borders of the grave, the alone foundation 
of a sinner's, or rather a believer's hope. With 
all the memories of his apostleship behind him, 
a thousand battles of the faith, in which, as a 
spiritual champion, he had fought and bled 
and conquered : with the remembrance of 
Jewish hate and Gentile scorn; the stocks 
and stripes of Philippi ; the buffeting of winter 
tempests he had braved by land and sea ; the 
moral intrepidity that made him stand amid 
Athenian philosophers, in the streets of Im- 
perial Rome, and amid the merchant princes 
of Corinth, pleading the injured cause of his 
Great Master ; the sacrifice of home, country, 
friends, religion, for a life of untiring and per- 
petual exile from most of the world's amenities 

and joys, — like a weary bird having no rest for 

U 



306 ST PAUL 'S PR A YER IN ROME 

the sole of his foot, and seeking none ; and 
now with the flash of the executioner's sword 
before him, to close the mighty drama of a 
consecrated existence : Yet hear his final plea, 
— " I obtained MERCY ; " hear his final prayer, — 
it is mercy for himself, mercy for his friend — 
" The Lord grant unto him that he may find 
mercy of the Lord in that day ! " Could we 
follow St Paul and Onesiphorus now, among 
yonder bright martyr-multitude before the 
throne, we might listen to their joint-song. 
The dungeon-prayer has been caught up in 
Paradise : it is the song of Eternity — " O give 
thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His 
mercy endureth for ever ! " 

IV. Once more, let us observe the Great Day 
of recompense, on which the Apostle's thoughts 
and prayers are centred : " The Lord grant 
unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord 
in that day!' " That day." We look for some 
antecedent in the verse, or in some preceding 
one. We can find none. How is this? Ah! it 
is beautifully significant. It tells us of some 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 307 

time — some era in this illustrious man's mind — 
which outpeered, in solemn importance and in- 
terest, all others ; some vast epoch with which 
he was so familiar, that unconsciously, in writing 
to another, he does not name it. Timothy would 
need no interpreter as he read his letter. It was 
the Great Day of God ; that luminous, radiant 
day, when Christ would appear in the glory of 
His Father and of the holy angels, as the Judge 
both of quick and dead. 

This is not the only passage where St Paul 
makes a similar indirect reference to the Day of 
final reckoning. In the 1 2th verse, which we shall 
afterwards more specially consider, he says, " I 
know whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
that He is able to keep that which I have com- 
mitted unto Him against that day'' Again, in 
the 4th chapter and 8th verse (it is striking, these 
occurring in his last letter, as if the Great 
white Throne were in view), " Henceforth there 
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give 
me at that day!' It was a glorious beacon-light 
in the haven of Eternity, which had gladdened 



308 ST PAUL 's PR A YER IN ROME 



his spirit during many a midnight on earth's 
tempestuous sea ; but it was shining clearer 
and brighter as he was nearing the heavenly 
shore. 

Need we wonder that he and the members of 
the suffering, struggling Church in that early age, 
regarded the Advent of Christ on His Throne 
of Judgment, as their most " blessed hope," and 
made it the object of their constant and longing 
prayers ? that it was looked forward to as the 
birthday of the Church-triumphant; the day 
when the wrongs of earth would be righted ; 
when sin would be expelled, and Satan bound ; 
when their living, loving Lord would be crowned 
with many crowns ; "the day of His espousals ; 
the day of the gladness of His heart." To St 
Paul it had other peculiar features of attractive- 
ness. It was the true antitype of the " Feast of 
Ingathering " — the harvest-home of Heaven ; the 
day on which many, like him, who had gone forth 
" weeping, bearing precious seed," would come 
again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with 
them. Was it strange, that the day uppermost 
in his thoughts — the day of days, — that which 



FOR ONESIPHORUS. 309 



was so familiar in his forecast of the future, 
that he need give it no other distinctive appella- 
tion — was the one which would not only permit 
him thus to witness the public coronation and 
enthronement of his Redeemer before an as- 
sembled world, as Lord of all, but which would 
usher him also into the presence of the Saints he 
had been honoured to save. " Without fault 
before the throne " they would " that day" stand, 
clothed in the full and final glory of their resur- 
rection bodies. " What," says he, " is our hope, 
or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye 
in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His 
coming" (1 Thes. ii. 19). 

That day ! — The chained, lonely captive in 
his gloomy w r ard, with the tear of gratitude in 
his eye, could picture Onesiphorus among the 
crowd who are then represented as thus dis- 
avowing the good deeds with which the Great 
Judge had credited them : " When saw we thee 
in prison, and came unto thee ? " He could 
listen in thought, to the gracious reply, identify- 
ing him with his friend, and making a blissful 
memory of earth, a memory of heaven, "Inas- 



3 IO ST PAUL 'S PRA YRR IN ROME 



much as ye have done it unto one of the least 
of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 

To what can we urge all here present, in pre- 
paration for that day and its solemn verities, 
but to seek that mercy, that same rich mercy 
which St Paul sought for Onesiphorus ; to take 
the publican's place, and, with the tear of peni- 
tence in your eye, and the prayer for pardon on 
your lips (looking too, as he did, to the Altar of 
Sacrifice,*) to utter the cry of the broken spirit, 
" God be merciful to me, a sinner ! " We believe 
there is no bound or barrier to that ocean of 
mercy in Christ, save what is erected by the 
pride, or indifference, or unbelief of man. It 
laves and washes the rockiest shores of the 
rockiest heart. St Paul tells us for our encour- 
agement, why that rich mercy was exercised to- 
wards him. " Howbeit for this cause I obtained 
mercy, that in me, first " (first, not in point of 
time, but in point of guilt), "Jesus Christ might 
show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to 
them which should hereafter believe on Him to 

* IXdadrjTi, implying reconciliation through sacrifice. 



FOR GNESIPHOR US. 3 1 1 

life everlasting " (i Tim. i. 16). But remember, 
it must be mercy sought now, to be mercy found 
on that day. We can pray for you now, as St 
Paul did for his friend ; you can pray for your- 
selves; but "that day" once come, Omnipo- 
tence itself cannot undo a neglected past ! 

Nor let any venture to trust in the vain delu- 
sion, that the mercy to be extended then, is the 
exercise of God's sovereign attribute ; that He 
will be too kind and too gracious to deal out 
the full measure of His threatenings ; that 
He will relax the severity of His law ; that 
He will suffer " them that fell " to taste only 
His "goodness," not His " severity."— Say, would 
the cross of Calvary have been erected ; would 
His own dear Son have had poured upon Him 
the vials of redundant suffering and anguish, 
if, after all (independent of these sufferings), 
Mercy could thus finally triumph over Justice ? 
No ! God is " not a man that He should lie, 
neither the son of man, that He should repent." 
While His mercy is from everlasting to ever- 
lasting on them that fear Him, it is a mercy 
founded on everlasting Truth and everlasting 



312 ST PAUL S PRAYER IN ROME, ETC. 

Righteousness. God too merciful to punish ! 
That august tribunal will overturn this, along 
with every other false confidence. Those who 
cling to the illusion will find it a rope of sand 
in riding out the final storm. 

Oh ! when that momentous crisis-hour shall 
come, when the Lord shall arise in the glory of 
His majesty, the centre and focus of a congre- 
gated world ; when that Throne shall be set, 
before whose sapphire brightness sun and moon 
will grow pale ; when the whirlwind of His wrath 
will be sweeping down every refuge of lies ; 
when the heavens shall be folded together as a 
scroll, — passing away with a noise, compared with 
which the loudest thunder would be but as an 
infant's cry ; when the earth shall be the sport 
of devouring flames, its forests charred into 
blackness, and its hills become as chafif ; when 
the graves of centuries shall be rifled, and the 
tramp shall be heard of gathering millions 
marching to the Great Assize — The Lord 
grant unto us, that we may find mercy of the 
Lord on that day ! 



SERMON VIII 
It 



|xs Partgrirnra. €ondn&wn> 



" For the which cause I also suffer these things : neverthe- 
less I am not ashamed ; for I KNOW WHOM I have 

BELIEVED, AND AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE 
TO KEEP THAT WHICH I HAVE COMMITTED UNTO 
HIM AGAINST THAT DAY."— 2 TlM. I. 12. 

" For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I 
have finished my course, I have kept the faith : hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give 
me at that day ; and not to me only, but unto all 
them also that love His appearing." — 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. 



VIIL 

{Preached at the Po?ia del Popolo, April ' g, 1871.) 

2 Tim. i. 12. 

" I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that 
He is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
Him against that day/' 

TI 7ITH what more appropriate theme than 
* * this, could I conclude the series of sub- 
jects which have engaged our attention during 
my brief ministry in this city ? These touching 
words of St Paul have a sacred solemnity attached 
to them, far exceeding that which belongs in com- 
mon to all dying utterances. If, as children, we 
gather in rapt reverential emotion around the 
couch of a departing parent, and treasure up 
the sayings of the hour in everlasting remem- 
brance (all the more so, if that parent's teachings 
and counsels have formed our unerring guide 
through life), with what hallowed interest should 
we, as Christians, gather around the closing 



3 1 6 st paul's d ying testimony 

hours of one, who, next to the Divine Redeemer 
he served, was the wisest, greatest, most loving 
of men ; and watch, so to speak, the last throbs 
of that mighty heart which " stirred the pulses 
of the world ?" 

The verse itself, as you already well know, 
forms part of the final letter the great Apostle 
dictated. He had now successfully rebutted 
the first indictment brought against him at 
Nero's tribunal ; that which, in all probability, 
consisted of the charge of complicity with in- 
cendiaries in the burning of Rome. Even the 
debased Emperor himself, if he gave a personal 
hearing to the case, was apparently unable to 
resist the weight of evidence establishing the 
prisoner's innocence. According to St Paul's own 
words he was "delivered out of the mouth of the 
lion/' He was remanded to gaol, to wait the 
second and final stage of his trial, in which the 
more important accusation was to be dealt with, 
of being the leader of a sect whose doctrines 
were in direct hostility to the national faith, 
involving treason against the Emperor. Too 
well did he know, that this major 'count' could 



IN ROME. — CONCL USION. 3 1 7 

not, — dared not, — be repelled like the former; 
and with that calm heroism, which never forsook 
him in all the trying exigencies of the past, he 
prepared for the worst. As we have previously 
noted, he was left, too, at this eventful crisis, 
well-nigh alone ; condemned to mourn in secret 
and solitude over the dereliction of former asso- 
ciates and friends. Some of these, indeed, at 
great personal risk, still cheered with an occa- 
sional visit the gloom and loneliness of his 
prison. Others, linked to him in fervid and 
unabated affection, had all the will openly to 
avow their attachment and prolong their ser- 
vices, but they were deterred by the almost 
certain vengeance that would have overtaken 
them. They would not only have been branded 
for connivance with the chief of an illicit religion, 
but they would have shared the odium he had 
incurred, from the thousands who had been 
rendered houseless and homeless, in conse- 
quence of the crime maliciously laid to his 
charge. So great was the terror inspired by 
this first "imperial persecution" against the 
Christians, that when the Apostle had lately 



3 1 8 st Paul's d ying testimony 

stood in the Basilica of the Palatine, confronted 
by his judges, he tells us he found himself 
entirely unsupported. No advocate could be 
secured to help him in his defence ; no com- 
panion to cheer him with his sympathy, or to 
be identified with his cause. " At my first 
answer," says he, "no man stood with me, but 
all men forsook me." While such was the posi- 
tion, reluctantly assumed, by not a few of those 
who were still devoted to himself, and still loyal 
to his Great Master, there were others who had 
turned basely renegade. From his paternal 
adjuration to Timothy, " Be thou not ashamed" 
and by his complimentary reference to Onesi- 
phorus, " He was not ashamed of my chain/' we 
gather, by implication, that there were others 
w r ho were ; — others who had quailed before 
the coming storm, and abandoned the noble 
vessel to wrestle, as best it could, among 
the breakers. Craven-hearted themselves, they 
had apparently tried to appeal, to the old 
prisoner's fears. Now that he had been ac- 
quitted on the minor indictment, might he 
not be prevailed upon to evade the certain 



IN ROME. — CONCL USION. 3 1 9 

consequences' of the second, by renouncing 
at once the hated creed, and doing homage 
to Cassar? Nothing else, nothing less, could 
save him. Nero had re-enacted, in their full 
vigour, the intolerant laws which had been re- 
pealed by Claudius, and which imperatively re- 
quired from all an acknowledgment of the reign- 
ing Emperor as divine; — demanding the offering 
of sacrifices in his name, and his being addressed 
by the title of ' Lord.' As St Paul possessed 
the privilege of " citizenship," he might on that 
account the more readily, by a timely recanta- 
tion, have had his past offences against the 
State condoned, and have saved himself from 
condign punishment. When these unworthy 
advisers, of whom I have spoken, saw the giant 
power of Rome arrayed against the infant faith ; 
— that faith itself, apparently, a mere ' bubble 
among the breakers/ — a brittle reed, with no 
human possibility of surviving the persecution 
which had burst upon it in demon fury : might 
they not be supposed thus to argue with. him, in 
the moment of their own weakness and apos- 
tasy — ' Why, Paul, persist in the hopeless cause, 



320 ST PAUL 'S DYING TESTIMONY 

and prolong the hopeless conflict ? Why main- 
tain an unequal struggle for that, which, being 
in antagonism to the Empire's belief, and to the 
will of the Csesars, must, sooner or later, fall 
to the ground ? Why perish in the flames or 
by the sword, for what is doomed to perish with 
you?' ' Nay/ would be his reply; ' disturb 
me not. Clinging to that faith in which I have 
lived, and for which I am now ready to die, is 
no act of wilful, blind fanaticism, — the reckless 
devotion of a visionary dreamer, to a doomed 
and desperate cause. I have nobler and loftier 
anticipations regarding that for which I suffer. 
I have a grander confidence in the majesty of 
truth, than to suppose that it can eventually be 
crushed and overthrown by the base tyranny 
and hostility of man. I have appealed to a 
more righteous bar. That God, who sent His 
Angel to me in the midst of the storm, will not 
leave me now. He has delivered me, and He 
will yet deliver me from the lions' mouth. My 
enemies may do their worst. They may insult 
my gray hairs ; they may load me with irons ; 
they may doom me to the public exposure of 



IN ROME. — CONCLUSION. 321 

the circus ; they may burn my poor body and 
scatter its ashes on that Tiber ; but, " neverthe- 
less I am not ashamed : for I know whom I have 
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to 
keep that which I have committed unto Him 
against that day/' ' 

Such seems to be the import of these glowing 
words. May the Apostle's creed be ours, ours 
his triumphant faith, that ours at last may be his 
eternal reward ! 

We have three topics here suggested for con- 
sideration : — 

I. A joyful assurance regarding the present. 
II. A happy persuasion regarding the future. 
III. The glorious prospect of a Day of final 
triumph. 

I. We have a joyful assicranee regarding tlie 
Present. il I know whom I have believed." The 
first thing which strikes us in this assertion is 
its wording. The formula is remarkable. The 
Apostle does not say, ' I know what I have be- 
lieved/ but "I know ivlwm I have believed ;" or 
(as that is better rendered in the margin), "I 



322 ST PAULS DYING TESTIMONY 

know whom I have trusted" It is not facts, or 
doctrines, or confessions, or sects, or Churches he 
speaks of, but his Living Lord : — Ci It is not even 
Christianity he boasts of, but Christ." " Detach 
Christianity," it has been beautifully said, " from 
Christ, and it vanishes before your eyes into 
intellectual vapour. For, it is of the essence of 
Christianity, that day by day, hour by hour, the 
Christian should live in conscious, felt, sustained 
relationship to the ever living Author of his 
creed and life. Christianity is non-existent 
apart from Christ; it centres in Christ ; it radiates 
now, as at the first, from Christ. It is not a 
mere doctrine bequeathed by Him to a world 
with which He has ceased to have dealings, it 
perishes outright, when men attempt to abstract 
it from the living Person of its Founder/' * St 
Paul felt so ; and this dying confession of his 
faith, is quite what we would have expected from 
him. The motto of his existence was this — " To 
me to live is Christ/' — " Christ my life/' Life 
to him was a hallowed journey with Jesus at 
his side. He loved Him, and leant upon Him as 

* Liddon's Bampton Lectures, 1866, p, 192. 



IN ROME. — CONCLUSION. 323 

an earthly friend ; like the sunflower opening to 
the radiant beams, and drooping in sadness and 
sorrow when that sun is away. Belief, too, was 
with him, not a mere mental act — the cold calcu- 
lating subscription of reason. It was the cleav- 
ing, trustful homage of a devoted heart ; a loyal 
allegiance of the intellect, the thoughts, the 
motives, the will, the affections, to the Re- 
deemer, as absolute Lord and ever-present 
King. Neither parent, nor sister, nor associate 
in his old Tarsus home, did he ever love like 
this Jesus of Xazareth. He had tried Him, and 
he had never found Him to fail. He therefore 
rejects with scorn the appeals of his timid and 
treacherous advisers, to purchase immunity from 
suffering by a base denial of his Lord. That 
trust of his was no enthusiastic dream. He had 
not abandoned home or kindred ; he had not 
forfeited all he loved and valued on earth for 
the bauble of an hour. He had counted the 
cost: he had tested this "Stone laid in Zion ;" he 
had found Him " a tried stone, a sure founda- 
tion." The heights above might combine with 
the depths beneath ; fiendish men might be con- 



324 ST PAUL S DYING TESTIMONY 

federate with fiendish devils, in trying to shatter 
his confidence, and blight his hope; but none 
would be able to separate him from the love of 
God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord ! 

" When Persecution's torrent blaze 
Wraps the unshrinking martyr's head : 
When fade all earthly flowers and bays, 
When summer friends are gone and fled ; 
Is he alone, in that dark hour, 
Who owns the Lord of love and power ? 

" Or, waves there not around his brow 
A wand no human arm can wield, 
Fraught with a spell no angels know, 
His steps to guide, his soul to shield ? " 

"Alone! yet not alone" — "The Captain of 
the Lord's host" was with him— " The LORD," 
he says, " stood with me and strengthened me." 
It was not in vain that he was then consummat- 
ing the life-long act of 'pouring out' his conse- 
crated existence as a libation on God's altar.* 
The Great Angel of the Covenant was there, to 
accept the offerer and the sacrifice. Perfumed 

* Such is the literal meaning and reference in the words, "I 
am now ready to be offered" (cTrepSo/xcu), — "poured out as a 
drink-offering," used only in one other passage in St Paul's 
Epistles, Phil. ii. 17. 



. IN ROME. — CONCLUSION. 325 

with other merits than his, the incense-cloud 
went up with acceptance before God. 

And what are the grounds of this confidence 
in the case of every believer, as well as in that 
of St Paul ? It is trust in a living Saviour, 
grounded on the meritorious obedience and 
sufferings of a dying Saviour. As we saw, in 
last Sabbath's discourse, there was a time when 
this great Champion of the faith would have 
trusted in anything rather than this. There 
was a time when he would have "trusted in 
himself that he was righteous, and despised 
others. * a I was alive/' was the boaster's chal- 
lenge, "without the law once" — 'I thought all 
was well with me ; that I was in a fair way for 
Heaven ; I soared in my religious profession 
high above my fellows. But, "when the com- 
mandment came;" — when the abysmal deeps of 
my own defilement and depravity yawned be- 
neath me, and the exceeding breadth of God's 
law was disclosed to my illuminated vision, "sin 
revived, and I died." I who once fancied myself 
a living man, pronounced myself spiritually 
dead!* Surely, if ever the child of Adam 



326 st paul's dying testimony 

could enter Heaven on the ground of his own 
doings, it was he who penned our text; — whose 
life-motto was this, " always abounding in the 
work of the Lord." Think of his graces as a 
Christian, his success as a minister, his labours 
as an Apostle. Who more than he had earned 
his crown ? who more than he could take his 
stand at the bar of God loaded with merit ? 
How different ! As we described morefully on a 
previous occasion, all his own once boasted right- 
eousness is like the yielding ice beneath his feet. 
It melted before the blaze of God's throne of 
purity. In the present hour of approaching 
dissolution, just when this mighty Tree in God's 
forest seemed (like the birchen trees we have 
all seen in our own land in their golden autumn 
tints) grandest in decay; just as his soul is 
about to wing its eagle-flight to the spirit-world, 
" Christ and Him crucified" is clung to with an 
ever fonder, holier trust. — "This is a faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners !" 

Have we the same blessed assurance and joy 
in contemplating the Work and Person of 



IN ROME. — COXCL USION. 327 

Jesus ? Lost, and perishing, and undone by 
nature, have we been able to cast ourselves, 
from first to last, on the merits and righteous- 
ness of our Surety-Redeemer ? Have we sten 
in Him, the true " Rainbow of Emerald," pro- 
claiming in its blended tints and sublime har- 
monies, that while " justice and judgment" are 
the habitation of God's throne, "mercy and truth" 
may go continually before His face ; for in the 
doing and dying of Christ the lustre of a sublime 
vindication encircles every attribute of His 
nature, and every requirement of His law ? And 
exulting in the completed atonement of Jesus, 
can we share, in some feeble measure, the 
Apostle's joy in contemplating a personal, 
living, loving Saviour ? Christ in our nature ; 
susceptible of every human sympathy ; bending 
over us with His pitying eye ; entering with 
infinite tenderness into every human want and 
woe ; drawing nigh in all the dark experiences 
of life, as He did to the disciples on their mid- 
night sea, and whispering the calming words, 
"It is I," (or rather, " I am"), "be not afraid." 'I 
am the Living One ; I am the controlling One 



328 ST PAUL 's DYING TESTIMONY 

(aye, and to "as many as I love ") ; I am the re- 
buking One, and the chastening One!' Let us 
think of this, not as a cold abstraction, or beau- 
tiful phantasm, but as a glorious truth, a sub- 
lime and comforting verity. He is ever with 
us ! When the gates of the morning are opened; 
swifter than the arrowy light, His footstep of love 
is at our threshold. When the gates of the 
evening revolve on their silent hinges, and day 
merges and melts into twilight, He is there! 
Amid the bustle of life, in " the loud stunning 
tide of human care," He is there ! By the lonely 
sickbed, when the glow of health has left our 
cheek, and the dim night-lamp casts its flicker- 
ing gleam on our pillow, He is there ! When 
the King of terrors has entered our dwellings; — 
when we are seated amid the awful stillness of 
the death-chamber, listening in vain for the 
music of cherished voices, hushed for the for- 
ever of time, He is there ! In all these diverse 
experiences, He draws near in touching tender- 
ness, saying, "Fear not, I am He that liveth 
and was dead ; and behold I am alive for ever- 
more/' " Fear not : for I have redeemed thee, 



IN ROME. — CONCLUSION. 329 

I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine. 
When thou passest through the waters, I will 
be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall 
not overflow thee : when thou walkest through 
the fire, thou shalt not be burnt ; neither shall 
the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the 
Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy 
Saviour." 

II. Let us proceed, as we purposed, to con- 
sider the Apostle s happy persuasion regarding the 
future. — u I am persuaded that He is able to keep 
that which I have committed unto Him!' St 
Paul exults in Christ's sufficiency in the past ; 
He rejoices in Christ's love in the present ; and 
now, the future, with all its unrevealed secrets, 
he commits to the keeping of that same Saviour 
God. " He is able to keep" Blessed name, 
blessed title ! Christ the Keeper of His people; 
their Shelter, their Citadel, their Stronghold ; 
where He keeps them "in perfect peace." He, 
the heavenly Casket, holding in sacred custody 
all they confide to Him ; — they, committing their 
souls to Him in well-doing \ — committing them 



330 st paul's dying testimony 

to be justified, committing them to be sanctified ; 
made meet for life and for death, for time and 
for eternity.* And there is no limit to this 
deposit. All that belongs to them, — all their 
cares and trials, sorrows and joys, crosses and 
losses ; the minutest accidents of their lot, as 
well as the momentous crisis-hours of their his- 
tory. He asks them to cast, not some of their 
cares, or their weightier cares, but all their 
cares. In Old Testament language, " He puts 
their tears into His bottle/' He counts their 
sorrows, drop by drop, tear by tear. " He keeps 
them as the apple of His eye ; " what touches 
tftem, touches Him ! 

Are we ready to subscribe also to this second 
article in St Paul's dying creed ? Are we 
prepared to say, " I am persuaded He is able to 
keep that which I have committed unto Him ? " 
With an unknown future before us, can we 
exult in the thought, that though unknown to 
us, it is known to Him, and in His hands we 
can joyfully leave it ? It may be different in- 

* u The metaphor here is that of a pledge deposited, and the 
depositor trusting the depositary."— Alford's Greek Test. 



IN ROME. — CONCL US ION, 3 3 I 

deed, in one respect, with us, from what it was 
with the great Apostle. To him, the future was 
at this time a very limited one. One brief day 
and night might embrace it all. He was living 
at any moment expecting the summons, "Come 
up hither." But whether life with us may be 
long or short, how joyous to be able to feel that 
all (yes, all) is in His hands. Every arrange- 
ment regarding our temporal lot, and, better 
still, the deathless interests of the soul which 
He has purchased with His own blood. In 
giving Himself, He has given the pledge of 
every other blessing. And mark the beautiful 
combination in the text. It is not only Christ 
"able to keep ;" — (the consciousness of having a 
strong city in which salvation is appointed for 
walls and bulwarks ;) but within this citadel, we 
know Him who is the Keeper. He who is able 
to keep me, is a known, a tried, a trusted Sa- 
viour. An earthly stronghold may have massive 
walls and fortifications ; but these, in themselves, 
are soulless, inanimate. They may have been 
built by the enemy. I may have no interest in 
being within them, or in retaining them; they 



332 ST PAUL' S DYING TESTIMONY 

are only fled to as a temporary shelter ; not one 
living being I care for, may be there to cheer 
me. How different would be my feelings, if 
within that Castle's walls there were those who 
knew me — beloved friends, or brave comrades ! 
How thrilling was that moment — the most touch- 
ing in all our Indian rebellion — when that terrible 
fortress, within which hope, once and again 
sickened and died, was entered by the band of 
relieving heroes, amid the joyful tears of the be- 
leaguered garrison, and brother and friend were 
locked in mutual embrace ! Such is the be- 
liever's Gospel Citadel. Christ is a living Re- 
deemer, a " living kinsman/' He is not only " a 
stronghold in the day of trouble,'' but "He 
knoweth them that trust in Him " (Nahum i. 7). 
In leaning on His arm, it is not like the staff of 
the Pilgrim, a welcome support, but yet a dead, 
pulseless, lifeless thing, that can respond to no 
sympathy, and solace no sorrow. But it is the 
arm of a Friend : " Who is this that cometh up 
from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?" 
Let us fearlessly entrust the keeping of our 
souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful 



IN ROME, — CONCL US/ON. 333 

Creator. Whatever be uncertain in the future, 
let us commend to His better wisdom, saying, 
" Not my will, but Thy will/' " The Lord is thy 
keeper ; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right 
hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor 
the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve 
thee from all evil : He shall preserve thy soul." 

III. We come now to the Apostle's glorious 
prospect of a final day of triumph. "Against 
THAT day? u That day." When adverting to the 
same phrase last Sabbath, in his prayer for Onesi- 
phorus, we noted the reiterated references made 
by St Paul to that significant era. We need 
not further dwell on its many suggestive themes 
for consideration. Let us only put the practical 
question, Are we in any similar measure " look- 
ing for and hasting unto the coming of the day of 
God?" Have we that day habitually before us, 
as it evidently was before the faithful of the 
Apostolic age ? Are we longing for it, as the 
sailor for his port, or the Pilgrim for his home ? 
When a brother or friend is expected from a 
distant land, how eagerly do we look for him ! 



334 ST PAUL S DYING TESTIMONY 

How ardently does affection listen to every foot- 
fall on the street, or gaze wistfully on every sail 
as it appears on the distant line of blue sea? 
How does the mother deck out the chamber for 
her long absent son, with all the lavish ingenuity 
which love can devise, to give him a fond wel- 
come ? Are we thus longing for the return of 
this "Chiefest among ten thousand ?" Are our 
hearts swept, and garnished, and beautified for 
His reception ? Are we ready to echo the exult- 
ing words of the Psalmist — " Let the heavens 
rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea 
roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be 
joyful, and all that is therein : then shall all the 
trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord : for 
He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth ?" 
To those who cannot join in the Apostle's 
triumphant words — to those who are unmeet and 
unprepared for " that day," there is surely deep 
solemnity and awe in the prospect of it. St 
Paul, in another place, speaks of it " overtaking 
as a thief/' It is "at midnight" the cry will be 
heard, " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh/' — the 
hour He is least looked for and least expected. 



AY R OME, — CONCL USIOX. 335 

Brethren, it is not for us to know the times and 
seasons ; when that trumpet shall sound, it is 
not for us presumptuously to predicate. But 
the day of our death is virtually to us ' the day 
of Christ's coming;' and as such, He may 
come soon; He must come at some time; He 
will, come unexpectedly. When the river runs 
smoothest, — no dimple on its surface, — rock and 
tree and mountain mirrored in its bosom ; — how 
often then is the waterfall at hand; and mad- 
dened into thunder, that river takes its leap into 
the dark caldron-depths below ? So, often, when 
life appears most placid, — its sun shining, its 
green banks carpeted with flowers, its stream un- 
dimpled by one rippling wave, the great cataract 
of death is nigh, and with one giant bound it 
plunges into the abyss of eternity ! How is it 
with us ? Can we say with St Paul in this same 
Epistle, in the prospect of that day, " I am now 
ready?" Are we ready ? Are we always ready? 
Is the step between us and death changed into 
the step between us and glory ? the hour of our 
departure into the hour of victory ? u Behold 
He cometh!" Would there be music in that 



3 36 ST PA UI? S DYING TESTIMONY 

word to us ? Would we be ready with the re- 
sponse, " Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for 
Him?" or would it rather find us on our knees 
with the reply, f Not yet, not yet ! Tarry, Lord ! 
tarry! Yet a few more days, a few more weeks, 
a few more years — I am yet unprepared for 
the reckoning. He cometh ! but for me, there is 
no pardon in His voice ; for me, there is no 
mercy in His footstep. He cometh ! but it will 
be "with flaming fire."' What is it that 
makes the thought of that day, and the 
meeting with the Judge, fearful? It is the 
sense of sin unforgiven. We never can en- 
dure to face a God unreconciled. So long as 
sin is not cancelled, and pardon through Christ 
neither sought nor secured ; so long as passion 
is left to uncontrolled dominion, and holiness of 
heart and life are undesired and unattained ; 
then, rather than breathe the Apostolic prayer, 
"Come, Lord Jesus/' what would we not do to 
evade His glance ? where would we not rush to 
avoid that withering rejection and disownment ; 
gazing on injured Goodness and unrequited 
Love ? God grant, that all of us may be able to 



IN ROME. — CONCL USION. 337 

" know whom we have believed " as Christ the 
Saviour, and then we shall not be ashamed to 
meet Him as Christ the Judge. If, I repeat, the 
hour of our departure from the world be really 
and virtually to us the hour of Christ's coming 
may we seek, now, so 

u To live, that when our summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death ; 
We go, not like the quarry slave at night 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustam'd and sooth'd 
By an unfaltering trust, approach our grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams,' 5 

With the words of our text, the great drama 
of St Paul's great life closes. He has been 
well likened, at this hour, to the conqueror in 
the adjoining Capitol, waiting for the crown to 
be placed on his brow. The curtain falls, as he 
utters the dying testimony we have now been 
considering ; and we are only left to imagine 
the rest :■ — The final trial in Nero's Basilica ; the 
condemnation (if tradition can be trusted) ; the 
scourging, the few remaining days in the Mam- 



338 ST PA UL 'S DYING TESTIMONY 

ertine, before passing to a more righteous judg- 
ment-seat ; the farewell glimpses of beloved 
friends, among whom we can, only by doubtful 
surmise, include Luke, Timothy, Clemens, Linus, 
Pudens, Onesimus, Tychicus, Aristarchus, and 
possibly other representatives from the Palatine 
and Trastevere. We can further picture the band 
of Roman soldiers hurrying outside the Ostian 
Gate with their unresisting prisoner ; wistful eyes 
following, in mute, expressive agony ; the silence 
broken only by sobs and tears that dare not be 
repressed. Then the arrival at that solitary 
spot in the naked Campagna, which still retains 
the tradition of his beheading. Like his dear 
Lord before him, he has willingly borne his 
Cross " without the gate." The fatal weapon 
descends ; and Angels are ready to conduct the 
soul of the glorious hero to Paradise. In the 
simple words of his beloved friend and contem- 
porary, Clement, il So he departed from the 
world, and went to that holy place, having 
shown himself the noblest pattern of endur- 
ance/' Even though we utterly reject the base- 
less fiction of the Tre Foutane, we may accept 



IN ROME. — CONCLUSION, 339 

the beautiful truth it symbolises and adum- 
brates ; that death was not — could not be, the 
close of a life like his. Though his lips were 
now irrevocably sealed, Fountains of " grace, and 
mercy, and peace" (Heaven's threefold benedic- 
tion he had so often uttered), were left to well 
up, fresh and copious as ever, to bless, in all 
coming centuries, that world he had made per- 
petual debtor by his teaching and example. A 
glorious sun had set, — vanished behind the hori- 
zon in golden glory ; but the mountain-peaks 
of all ages are still lighted up with its undying 
radiance : " He being dead, yet speaketh." The 
saddest moment to the mourning Church on 
earth (for she had sustained no such loss since 
the departure of her Great Head) ushered the 
martyred Apostle into the blissful and merited 
scene of recompense for all his sufferings and 
labours. What one so often reads, in the rude 
inscriptions traced by fond hands on the tombs 
in the Catacombs, had in his case their truest, 
fullest, most sacred meaning and significance, 
" In Christo in pace " : — 



340 ST PA UL 'S DYING TESTIMONY 



" The pains of death are past : 
Labour and sorrow cease : 
And life's long warfare closed at last, 
His soul is found in peace." 

Whether, indeed, he really sleeps in the spot 
where tradition has deposited his ashes, we can- 
not positively affirm. But the rearers of the 
magnificent mausoleum, which, with its aureole 
of lighted lamps, enshrines his memory, have 
selected, at all events, the most appropriate of 
epitaphs in those simple words we have more 
than once spoken of in their connection with 
that place — 

" TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST, AND TO DIE 
IS GAIN." 

Following, as we have been endeavouring to 
do (we trust not without interest), the footsteps 
of the great Apostle in this ancient capital of 
the world, may it be our joy to meet him at last 
in the true "Eternal City? — "the city which hath 
foundations," and there testify the debt which, 
under God, we owe to him in common with the 
millions on millions who on earth have read, 
and prayed, and rejoiced over his utterances. It 



IN ROME. — CONCL US ION. 3 4 1 

was one of the illustrious Chrysostom's bright 
anticipations of Heaven (may we be able in some 
feeble measure to participate in the prospect) : 
" If not standing near him, yet see him we cer- 
tainly shall, glistening near the throne of the 
King, where the cherubim sing the glory ; w T here 
the seraphim are flying ; there we shall see 
PAUL, as a chief and leader of the choir of the 
Saints, and shall enjoy his generous love/' 

I can only appropriately conclude with the 
final ascription of the now sainted Apostle, ad- 
dressed to believers in ROME, as contained in 
the closing verses of his own Epistle to the 
Romans (xvi. 25, 27) : — 

" Now to Him 

THAT IS OF POWER TO STABLISH YOU 

ACCORDING TO MY GOSPEL, 

AND THE PREACHING OF JESUS CHRIST : 

• • • • 

To God only wise 
be glory, through jesus christ, for ever. 

Amen." 



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12 



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THE WORD SERIES. 

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2. GONZALEZ AND HIS WAKING DREAMS. By 

C. S. H. 

3. DAISY BRIGHT. By Emma Marshall. 

4. HELEN ; or, Temper and its Consequences. By Mrs. G. 

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5. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY; or, The Disobedient Son. 

By W. S. Martin. 

6. THE LITTLE PEATCUTTERS ; or, The Song of 

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7. LITTLE CROWNS, AND HOW TO WIN THEM. 

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8. CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. By a Missionary's Wife. 

9. TEDDY'S DREAM ; or, A Little Sweep's Mission. 

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11. HOME LIFE AT GREYSTONE LODGE. By 

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12. THE PEMBERTON FAMILY, and other Stones. 

13. CHRISTMAS AT SUNBURY r DALE. By W. 

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14. PRIMROSE; or, The Bells of Old Effingham. By 

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15. THE BOY GUARDIAN. By the Author of "Dick 

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16. VIOLET'S IDOL. By Joanna H. Matthews. 

17. FRANK GORDON. By the Author of « The Young 

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18. THE COTTAGE ON THE CREEK. By the Hon. 

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19. THE WILD BELLS AND WHAT THEY RANG. 

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20. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. A Story of Winter 

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AUNT EDITH ; or, Love to God the Best Motive. 
SUSY'S SACRIFICE. By Alice Gray. 
KENNETH FORBES ; or, Fourteen Ways of Studying 

the Bible. 

LILIES OF THE VALLEY, and other Tales. 
CLARA STANLEY ; or, a Summer among the Hills. 
THE CHILDREN OF BLACKBERRY HOLLOW. 
HERBERT PERCY ; or, From Christmas to Easter. 
PASSING CLOUDS ; or, Love conquering Evil. 
DAYBREAK ; or, Right Struggling and Triumphant. 
WARFARE AND WORK; or, Life's Progress. 
EVELYN GREY. By the Author of " Clara Stanley." 
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAVELYN FAMILY. 
DONALD FRASER. By the Author of" Bertie Lee." 
THE SAFE COMPASS, AND HOW IT POINTS. 

By Rev. R. Newton. D.D. 

THE KING'S HIGHWAY; or, Illustrations of the 

Commandments. By the same. 

BESSIE AT THE SEASIDE. By Joanna H. 

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CASPER. By the Authors of "The Wide Wide 

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KARL KRINKEN ; or, The Christmas Stocking. By 

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MR. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN. By the same. 
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25. GRACE BUXTON; or, The Light of Home. By 

Emma Marshall. 

26. LITTLE KATY AND JOLLY JIM. By Alice 

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28. BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. By the same. 

29. BESSIE IN THE MOUNTAINS. By the same. 

30. HILDA AND HILDEBRAND ; or, The Twins of 

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31. GLEN ISLA. By Mrs. Drummond. 

32. LUCY SEYMOUR ; or, « It is more Blessed to give than 

to receive." By the same. 

33. LOUISA MO RETON; or, -'Children, obey your Parents 

in all things. 11 By the same. 

54. THE WILMOT FAMILY; or, "They that deal 

truly are His delight.' 1 By the same. 

35. SOWING IN TEARS, AND REAPING IN JOY. 

By Franz Hoffmann. Translated from the German by Mrs. Faber. 

36. BESSIE ON HER TRAVELS. By Joanna H. 

Matthews. 

37. LITTLE NELLIE ; or, The Clockmaker's Daughter. 

38. THREE LITTLE SISTERS. By Mrs. Marshall, 

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39. MABEL GRANT. A Highland Story. 

40. THE RETURN FROM INDIA. By the Author of 

" Hilda and Hildebrand," etc. 

41. THE COURT AND THE KILN. A Story founded 

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DERRY. A Tale of the Revolution. 

Elizabeth. 

THE LAND OF THE FORUM 

VATICAN. By the Rev. Newman Hall, LL.B. 

THE LISTENER. By Caroline Fry. 

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE EAST ; or, Illus- 

trations of Bible Scenes. By the Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D. 

BEECHENHURST. A Tale. By A. G., Author of 

"Among the Mountains," etc. 

THE HOLY WAR. By John Bunyan. 

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. By John Bunyan. 

THE MOUNTAINS OF THE BIBLE; Their 

Scenes and their Lessons. By the Rev. John Macfarlane, LL.D. 

THROUGH DEEP WATERS; or, Seeking and 

Finding. An Autobiography. 

HOME AND FOREIGN SERVICE ; or, Pictures 

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LIFE, A Series of Illustrations of the Divine Wisdom 

the Forms, Structures, and Instincts of Animals. By Phillip H. 



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LAND AND SEA. By P. H. Gosse, F.R.S. 
JOHN KNOX AND HIS TIMES. By the Author 

of " The Story of Martin Luther," etc. 

HOME IN THE HOLY LAND. By Mrs. Finn. 
A THIRD YEAR IN JERUSALEM. A Tale 

Illustrating Incidents and Customs in Modern Jerusalem-. By Mrs. Finn. 

16 & 17. THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

By P. H. Gosse, F.R.S. First and Second Series. 

18, BYEWAYS IN PALESTINE. By James Finn, Esq. 

F.R.A.S., late H. M. Consul of Jerusalem and Palestine. 

HEADS AND TALES ; or. Anecdotes and Stories of 



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Quadrupeds and other Beasts, as connected with the Histories of more or 
less distinguished men. Selected and written by Adam White, Duddingston. 

BLOOMFIELD. A Tale by Elizabeth Warren, 

Author of " John Knox and his Times," &c. 

TALES FROM ALSACE ; or, Scenes and Portraits 

from Life in the Days of the Reformation, as drawn from old Chronicles. 
Translated from the German. 

HYMNS OF THE CHURCH MILITANT. By 

the Author of " The Wide 'Wide World." 

THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTERS: or. The 



Spring Time of Woman. 
Influences," &c. 



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